Partially Awake
by Komillia
Summary: What Ezaria wants, Ezaria gets. Now she has set her mind on grandchildren and since Yzak has yet to marry, Ezaria decides to arrange a marriage for him. [YzakxShiho]
1. Deal

**Partially Awake  
Chapter 1: Deal**

_**Author's Note:** After all the work on Redivivus I decided to write some light while working on its sequel at the same time. I've been wanting to write a YzakxShiho fanfic for a while, so here it is! I hope you all enjoy it and don't hesitate to let me know if you do by clicking that wonderful review button. ;)_

* * *

To say that Ezaria Jule was suffering from the court's sentence was to go way beyond exaggerating. 

While it was true that she had been one of Patrick Zala's strongest supporters in the council, she had been too much of an important figure to ZAFT to be publicly disposed of. Given that, after the battle of Jachin Due she had been forced to resign and now spent most of her days in house arrest. House arrest was an exaggeration as well, seeing as Ezaria was only confined to her ten acre property, which included a fifteen bedroom mansion and a small lake. There was a large lawn between the lake and the mansion, perfect for all the spring parties that Ezaria loved to throw for her friends and former colleagues. Confined wasn't the right word to describe her current state either, as she was allowed to visit other PLANTs and leave her home as long as she stayed under the supervision of the guards the council had assigned her.

In short, Ezaria Jule lived a very luxurious life in being allowed to do whatever she wanted with guards that had more of less become her bodyguards that she didn't even have to pay for. That being said, Yzak could in no way understand how his mother could be suffering from such a simple thing as boredom.

One warm Monday in June, the first day of his five day leave, Yzak visited his mother on her request and watched her pour up a steaming cup of tea for him.

"You have gotten so thin, Yzak… you have to start taking better care of yourself," Ezaria scolded but in the mild tone Yzak was used to hearing her in. She put the teapot down and gently lifted his chin a little. "You've become paler since last time I saw you… but I guess that is what being in space does to you."

With a sigh she released her hold on his chin and sat down in her favorite armchair right across the sofa where Yzak sat. She picked up her teacup and it only took one look from her to convince Yzak that he had to do the same. He automatically brought the cup to his lips, ignoring the burning sensation on his tongue as he tasted the tea.

"The tea is delicious, mother."

"Thank you," Ezaria smiled after sipping from her own cup. "I guess that is what boredom does to me… I've had my chef give me cooking lessons. You should have seen the way he compliments my crepes!"

As difficult as it was for Yzak to imagine his mother in the kitchen, he suspected that it was not far from the truth. His mother was the kind of person who excelled in everything she tried her hand at, whether it was in learning languages, politics or even cooking in this case.

"I'm happy you have found a new hobby," he said, whereas Ezaria sighed again.

"Yes, yes… considering how things are I'm going to need my fair share. But I didn't ask you to come here to talk about my hobbies."

She set down her teacup on the glass table and folded her hands neatly in her lap. Yzak nearly dropped choked on his tea. Now he knew something was wrong.

"Yzak, as you know I am not getting any younger."

The words "middle age crisis" coming to his mind, Yzak opened his mouth to protest.

"Mother, that's not true! You are…"

"Let me finish, Yzak," Ezaria cut off sternly and Yzak silenced himself immediately. " What I mean by that I'm not young anymore, is that I'm not going to wait until I'm almost dead to get everything in order. I would like to see the most important person in my life happy, you."

Yzak felt a faint blush rising to his cheeks.

"Therefore, I have spoken to Commander Hahnenfuss and he has given his consent for you to ask his daughter's hand in marriage."

Hot. Something was very hot. It almost felt burning, actually. It wasn't until his mother stood up and exclaimed something that Yzak looked down and realized that he had dropped his teacup and spilled the warm tea all over his pants.

"Yzak!" Ezaria exclaimed. "Don't move, I'll get the maid to…"

"No mother, I'm fine."

Forcing himself not to wince over the mess he had made, he grabbed a box of tissues from the table and started the futile attempt at cleaning himself up. In the corner of his eye he could see his mother sitting down again and sigh for the third time.

"I know this is a bit sudden, but I've come to the conclusion that it is for the best," she went on. "Seeing as you are twenty-two and still haven't found a girlfriend on your own…" Yzak winced again. "…and Commander Hahnenfuss's daughter is from what I heard very respectable. I think this would be a wonderful match."

Hahnenfuss. Daughter.

Yzak had never bothered to check up on Shiho's background, but the little he knew about was that she came from a family of military background. There couldn't be that many female Hahnenfuss around in the military, especially if she was his age. Hiding his hand from his mother's view, Yzak crushed a nicely folded tissue into a wrinkled, pressed ball.

"Mother… does this happen to be the same Hahnenfuss who is stationed at my ship?"

He looked up to see Ezaria smiling.

"Yes, and I was glad to hear it when I spoke to her father. I guess that means that there won't be any problems since you already know her, right Yzak?"

* * *

One thing was certain. Although Yzak was more than content to return to the Voltaire for duty he was not enjoying the sudden amount of curious looks and muffled snickers that he noticed every time he walked by. At first he thought that it was just his imagination and a voice bearing an uncanny resemblance to Dearka's told him that he was just being paranoid. But something was clearly wrong when he happened to approach the mess hall and found a young technician sitting and doing an impersonation of Ezaria to a group of laughing crew members. 

Well, he's not laughing now, Yzak thought to himself, having recently exited the mess hall after a decent amount of yelling and ordering everyone in there to take over all the cleaning on the Voltaire seeing as they seemed to work so well together.

Two female crew members came half floating around the corner and greeted him with a salute. Yzak gave them a barely noticeable nod because passing them but as he could swear that he heard one of them sigh and say something starting with the words:

"Too bad..."

He straightened his collar slightly and raised his chin slightly as the doors to the sliding doors to the bridge opened before him. Upon entering the bridge he was met with salutes and serious faces. No one stared at him strangely, no one was snickering or whispering. Yzak settled in his chair. Perhaps he had just been mistaken and he began to think that there was nothing out of the ordinary going on at all.

That was, until Dearka casually floated over to his side and took the liberty to slap his friend and captain on the shoulder.

"Hey, how's the future groom doing?"

Dearka flashed a broad grin, one that did nothing but make Yzak feel that at that moment it was perfectly alright to want to kill your best friend. In the corner of his eye Yzak noticed how at least a dozen pair of eyes had turned towards him. Scowling, Yzak stood up abruptly.

"What the hell are you talking about!" he hissed, reaching for Dearka's collar but the latter dodged his hand just in time.

"Whoa, take it easy," Dearka said, still grinning much to Yzak's frustration. "I'm just repeating what everyone else is saying."

The fact that his heart beat a thousand times faster and felt like it was threatening to explode was becoming more and more clear to Yzak.

"What is everyone saying!" Yzak shouted angrily.

"Just that your mom arranged for you and Shiho to get married," Dearka answered with a shrug, having been around Yzak long enough to feel almost immune to his temper. "I heard it from someone in the hangar... geez, so much for telling your friends first, Yzak."

Yzak reached for Dearka's collar again, this time he managed to grasp it and gave Dearka a rather violent shake.

"That's because mother was supposed to keep it a secr...!" he started but stopped abruptly the middle of the sentence.

Looking slightly towards his left he could see the captain of the ship staring curiously at him. When he turned his head a little more and got a full view of every crew member on the bridge he noticed that time seemed to have stopped and everyone was staring at him and Dearka. Scowling, Yzak let go of Dearka and turned to the crew.

"What are you all looking at!" he yelled angrily, startling everyone on the bridge. "This ship won't launch on its own, get back to work!"

Not wanting to invoke more wraths from the commander, the captain nervously mumbled an order and all the bridge crew quickly went back to doing whatever they were supposed to. Almost feeling Dearka's amused look in the back of his nice, Yzak ignored him and approached the communications center. The officer in charge of it quickly backed off as Yzak pushed a few buttons and then brought the headset to him.

"Attention, this is Commander Yzak Jule speaking!" he hollered through the communications system, not caring about the fact that he spoke so loudly. "All ship personnel are to immediately continue with their assignments! If I see ANYONE standing about and talking I will personally see to it that the officer in question will receive a fitting punishment!"

With that, he threw the headset back to the communications officer and marched out of the bridge. As the sliding doors closed behind him, silence fell upon the entire bridge. Everyone there looked at Dearka with confusion, as if they expected him to give some sort of information. The latter simply shrugged and that was all he managed to do before the doors opened again and revealed that Yzak was back already.

He avoided everyone's looks and said nothing until he reached the communications center again and snatched the headset.

"Also, pilot Shiho Hahnenfuss is to report to my office immediately," Yzak murmured quickly into the microphone, then threw it down the moment he was done.

With that he quickly left the bridge and the crew members sat there in silence once more. Then suddenly, a quiet chuckle was heard from Dearka. The chuckle spread to the captain and then to the rest of the bridge crew.

Just outside of the bridge and on the other side of the door, Yzak's face turned scarlet red as he trudged towards his office.

* * *

The silence and tranquillity in his office did nothing to sooth Yzak's nerves. His face reddened with anger each time he even thought about the fact that his own subordinates were laughing at him for letting his mother decide such an important thing for him. His face wrinkling slightly into a frown, he instead decided to try and think of the best way to fix his current situation. 

He could tell his mother that he was not going to do as she said, he was not going to get married.

He could refrain from telling her anything at all and just silently refuse.

He could pretend to comply with his mother's decision but not go through with the actual wedding ceremony.

He could get married and then divorce.

He could defect from ZAFT and flee to an abandoned colony in L4.

All of those options sounded wonderful in Yzak's head but he knew better than anyone that if he dared to go through with one of them it would turn his bored, loving mother into a full fledged son eating dragoness. One had to think carefully before wanting to anger Ezaria Jule and despite being her son Yzak was no exception to that rule.

A quiet knock on the door brought him back to reality and he automatically pressed the button the control panel, causing the door to slide open. When Yzak looked up, he saw Shiho walking over the doorway and saluting once she was inside.

"Commander Jule."

For being the girl he was supposed to marry she was awfully unbridelike, if that was a word. A few years ago he had caught a glimpse of Athrun and Lacus together when they were engaged. Lacus had been the very image of someone who would become a perfect bride, beautiful, graceful and with feminine looks like a fairytale princess. Shiho, however was not.

When Yzak looked at her he remarked to himself that her nose was too pointy, her lips were a little too thin and her eyelids seemed heavy. There was nothing soft about her face and from experience Yzak knew that if one got on her wrong side the look in her eyes would be anything but warm and kind. Back when Shiho had been made a redcoat there hadn't been a female version of the uniform designed, but now that there was she still wore the male version of the uniform. Why she did that, he did not know.

"I don't mean to be rude, but I believe that generally you're supposed to tell me to be at ease by now," Shiho spoke suddenly, startling Yzak out of his thoughts. "My arm is starting to cramp up."

"Perhaps you should be doing more physical training then," Yzak scoffed.

Shiho rolled her eyes and dropped her arm. Aside from Dearka she was the one on the Voltaire he had known longest and though she knew when to be respectful, she was not deathly afraid of Yzak like everyone else on the ship. He had known her ever since she was placed in his squad a few years ago and she had been under his command ever since. Yzak almost felt strange looking at her the way he did, examining her as his future wife rather than just looking at one of his many subordinates.

"I'm not the one who's been locked behind a desk and in a chair for the past few years," Shiho retorted with a smile tugging at her lips when she saw Yzak's eye twitch slightly. "With all the paperwork you have to do... no wonder you already have gray hair."

"Careful you don't end up demoted," Yzak warned.

"I'm sure Dearka could use the company."

"And what kind of company were you planning on giving him!"

The words slipped out of Yzak's mouth before he knew it. Luckily Shiho did not seem to have taken any offense, but instead she just looked strangely at him. Frowning, Yzak opened a drawer in his desk. He pulled out a clear white envelope and lazily put in on the desk before him.

"Read it."

Shiho gave him another weird look and reached for the envelope. She quickly opened it and pulled out a neatly folded letter. She read through the letter quickly, Yzak could tell by the way her eyes went back and forth whenever she would change lines. After less than thirty seconds her eyes turned away from the letter and instead to him.

"Well... I guess it's all set then."

Now it was Yzak's turn to stare at her strangely. His eyes widened and he stood up so abruptly from his chair that it almost fell over.

"ALL SET!" he exclaimed. "We're engaged! Engaged! My mother wants to see grandchildren! What the hell are we going to do about that!"

Shiho took a step back but soon retaliated with her voice raised.

"_We_ can't do anything about this!" she countered, emphasizing the first word. "With your mother and my parents, do you really think we have a say in this!"

"So what do you suggest we do!" Yzak snapped. "Get married, have a bunch of kids just to make our parents happy!"

"No..." Shiho crossed her arms. "Just because we don't have a say, doesn't mean that we can't do anything about this. We get _them_ to call off the engagement. Convince them that we're so bad for each other and make such an awful couple that they'll hate the idea of us getting married. They call everything off, end of story."

Yzak frowned for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

"You really think that will work?"

Shiho reached out her right hand.

"It will if you work with me on this... partner."

Yzak looked at her hesitantly, then forcefully grabbed her hand and shook it.

"Deal."


	2. Disarray

**Partially Awake  
Chapter 2: Disarray  
**

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Author's Note:_**_ I've been on a writing roll lately, I hope this sticks for a while. I'm becoming very fond of this fanfic and I hope that it will turn out as well as I have plenned._

_A huge, megabig **thank you **to everyone who has reviewed.__ I can't tell you guys how much it means to be to know that someone is reading this and enjoying it, especially since it's Yzak/Shiho and I was counting on getting a total of five reviews by the time I finished this fanfic because I didn't think know that many people like this pairing. Again, thanks to everyone who has read this and I hope that you'll enjoy this chapter as well!  
_

* * *

Stretching her arms out, Shiho could hardly contain the yawn escaping from her mouth as she entered her quarters. Light automatically filled the room as she entered and the door was shut quickly behind her, closing her off from the rest of the ship. 

"Finally..." she whispered to herself as she slowly sat down on her bed. She reached down to pull the zipper on her boots down.

It had been a long day. The Voltaire had been scheduled for launch early in the morning and for her it had meant getting up at the crack of dawn because Yzak being so punctual was likely to order the ship to take off even if its only pilot had not made it on board yet. Shortly after boarding the ship Shiho had been cornered by a few rookies who, despite her threats, would not stop asking about her and Yzak.

_You'd think that they'd have more important things to do than to talk about us,_ Shiho thought as she pulled her boots off and carelessly placed them before the small closet.

After that the gossiping had spread like a plague and there was not a single person on the ship who wasn't talking. Thankfully Shiho had found refuge in the hangar where she worked tirelessly on the OS of her ZAKU, ignoring every annoying comment made by the tech crew even though most of them were related to Yzak and his mother rather than her. Not until Yzak's voice screeched through the speakers did the real fits of laughter occur and Shiho had almost felt relieved when Yzak had called her to his office because it gave her an excuse to get away from everyone. Not that going to Yzak had given her the peace and quiet she wanted, but that was pretty much to be expected given that it was Yzak she had gone too.

Now, fourteen hours later after what pretty much was non-stop working, she was finally alone in her quarters. Tossing her red ZAFT uniform over the back of the chair, she pulled on a tank top and a pair of pajama bottoms before falling exhausted to the bed with her back first. Almost buried under a sufficient amount of blankets, a voice in her head told her that she should really hang her uniform up as she usually did so that it would not be wrinkly in the morning. But the warmth of her bed was too luring and she promptly ignored that thought.

"Lights off."

Everything turned black.

It was Yzak's fault really. His order had the entire crew working like animals and since the more everyone else did the more she had to do. But again, it was Yzak and his burst of anger was expected. Shiho shifted slightly, half burying her face in the pillow when her thoughts wandered to Yzak and their current situation.

Engagement.

Marriage.

Shiho shuddered and was fairly sure that it was not because of cold.

She remembered waking up last Monday because of the phone ringing. Half an hour later she had been on her way to her parents' house for brunch. They had, over her mother's burnt toast, weak tea and awful attempts at pancakes, informed her that as of this moment she was engaged to none other than her own commander Yzak Jule.

Chaos was the only word Shiho could find to describe the current situation. A crew that could hardly contain their laughter when she was nearby, Yzak as a fiancée...

She shifted again and lied on her back, staring at the ceiling. At least she would have if it had not been for the fact that the lights were off.

The last problem was the one she needed to deal with. The talk and the jokes she could handle, the engagement itself was a completely different issue. Her own parents had barely listened to her protests when they had told her about it and judging from what Shiho knew about Yzak's mother she guessed that Ezaria Jule was probably blissfully oblivious of what her son really thought. Getting her parents and Ezaria to call of the engagement might prove difficult and require something extreme.

_I can do this,_ Shiho thought and shifted once again, this time she lying on her left side. _I can handle this. I'll just... convince my mother that Yzak is really a transsexual natural who likes to table dance. Or not. _

As she lied there with open eyes and her mind thinking fully how she was going to get out of the situation, she suddenly noticed how annoying the ventilation system going above her room was and how noisy the rookies were when they passed the hallway on their way to their own quarters.

_And what do I tell his mom? Sorry, don't want to marry your son, please don't claw my eyes out. No, I am not currently seeing someone else but that does not mean that I want to get married and bear your son's hellspawn, I mean, children. And no, the constant fear in my eyes have nothing to do with the fact that you are a person who have people around you twenty-four hours each day whose sole purpose of being here is to restrain you if you become aggressive and that I am wearing a bullet proof vest just to be safe._

She sighed and turned again to lie on her back.

_This is stupid. This is really stupid. Chaos is an understatement._

* * *

A few corridors away Yzak was having problems sleeping as well and for the past hour he had tried everything from counting sheep to threatening himself to eat Dearka's cooking if he did not fall asleep. As expected, none of those methods actually worked and after another half hour of tossing and turning he pushed the blankets aside, got up and walked over to his desk. Not bothering to turn on any lights except for his desk lamp, he turned on the computer and logged on to the communications program. 

As soon as he was logged in a large pop up covering half the screen appeared. The pop up itself was simple, but Yzak knew from experience that the red text with the words "Important" meant that this was an order from his superiors, if not directly from the ZAFT Supreme Council. He clicked on "Open" and watched as the lines of text appeared before him on the screen, not that there were that many lines.

But the more Yzak read the more his eyes widened in pure shock and he ended up staring at the screen with a mixture of confusion and denial.

"You've got to be kidding me..."

He stared at the words over and over again, wondering if the darkness in his room had somehow made his eyes distort the words on the screen to the ones he was reading. But no matter how much he hoped, sense and logic told him that the words he had just read came directly from his superiors and there was no real reason to doubt that they were valid. As the full meaning of the words began to sink in Yzak frowned, turned off the computer immediately and walked back to his bed.

There he lay down again and drowned a scream full of rage in his pillow.

* * *

"Slept well?" 

Shiho took a momentary pause and looked up from the small monitor and saw Dearka floating about just outside the open cockpit of her ZAKU. She smiled weakly upon seeing him and then returned to typing fervently at the keyboard.

"Not really," she answered. "Guess it's just after being used to sleeping at home. I mean, when was the last time we got a five day leave?"

"Christmas break at the academy I guess?" Dearka joked. "We talk about five days leave as if it was five months... with all the work we get you'd think that we're still at war."

Finishing the last of her calibrations, Shiho pushed the keyboard away from her with a contented "Finally!". She stretched out her arms, hearing a slight crack in her tense shoulders but then again it was no surprise since she had been working for hours. The lack of sleep had made her get up earlier than she was required to and she had spent every waking moment since then in the cockpit calibrating the thrusters on her ZAKU. It had been a slow process but at least now she was done.

"Going to rejoin the living now?" Dearka teased.

"I'm dying for some coffee," Shiho smiled.

Dearka chuckled lightly.

"Nice pun."

Anxious to get out, Shiho pushed herself out of the cockpit. But she was a little too eager and accidentally used too much force to push herself out. The lack of gravity became more apparent than ever when she lost control over her own movement and was slowly drifting away from the ZAKU with nothing to hold onto. For a moment she felt a slight sense of panic as she was floating freely in the middle of the hangar, then someone suddenly grasped her hand and pulled her back in. Looking over her shoulder she saw that it was Dearka, who guided her back towards the ZAKU.

"Thanks," she said, grabbing onto the door of the cockpit to make sure that she wouldn't float away again.

"Anytime," Dearka winked. "You know how I love to help out pretty ladies."

This time it was Shiho's turn to chuckle.

"How insulting to reuse that line on me, what do you think I am?" she asked jokingly. "A rookie fresh out of the academy and who's having her first week here?

"Should have known, you're never much for getting compliments."

"And you're never much for knowing when to stop with flattering women."

"You know, there's a girl in Orb who'd agree that statement..."

"DEARKA! SHIHO!"

Although she were floating at least a few dozen feet above the floor, Shiho somehow managed to jump as she was startled by the sudden yell of her name. A quick glance at Dearka told her that he pretty much had the same reaction and when she looked down she saw Yzak stand in one of many doorways that led out of the hangar. With light from the corridor behind him casting a shadow over him Shiho couldn't see his face well but if anything she recognized the angry frown that had more or less become his trademark.

"Assemble in the tactical room immediately!" Yzak shouted from where he stood.

Shiho had barely had the time to raise her hand to salute him before he was gone. Surprised by Yzak's sudden and quick leave, she looked at Dearka for an explanation but the latter seemed just as surprised as she was.

"What's his problem today?" Shiho asked quietly.

Though used to Yzak's temper and the way he tended to take it out on other people, she found it a little strange that he had left so quickly, especially when all three of them were heading to the same place. Usually he would wait for them to join him and in the mean time he would attempt to break the world record of scaring as many crew members as possible by simple glaring or, if required, more yelling.

"No idea," Dearka said with a shrug. He pushed against the ZAKU and slowly started to move downwards. "Did you say something to him?"

Shiho remembered yesterday's conversation and considering that it had ended without bruises, death threats or damaged ears she decided that it went pretty well. After agreeing to it Yzak was just as determined as she was to break off the engagement and considering his conviction she found it strange that he was angry again like he had been yesterday before their talk. While his sudden anger rose a bit of curiosity, it was not difficult to brush it off and not think too much about it. It was Yzak after all, her high strung commander who had too much work to do and whose middle name was temperamental.

She and Dearka arrived at the tactical room soon enough, making sure to salute perfectly after they entered. Yzak stood with his back against him, studying something on a large monitor and did not acknowledge their presence at first. Shiho exchanged a look with Dearka, mentally repeating the question she had asked earlier but Dearka looked none the wiser. Finally, Yzak turned to them and with a simple nod he told them to be at ease.

"We have received new orders," he informed coldly. "We are to head to L4 and monitor this colony."

An image appeared on the monitor behind Yzak, showing nothing but dark space, save for the small tiny, glowing stars in the distance. It took Shiho a few moments and for her to squint her eyes to see that there was actually a small space colony on the image. The image had been taken from such a long distance that it was difficult to make out the colony in it.

"Monitor?" Dearka repeated. "Exactly what are we supposed to be on the lookout for?"

Yzak pointed to a document lying on the table before them. Shiho peered forward and read the words written on it.

"Smugglers?" she said, looking at Yzak with a puzzled expression on her face. "They're sending us out in the middle of nowhere to look for smugglers?"

"Glad to see that you're maintaining your reading skills, Hahnenfuss," Yzak retorted harshly. "Those are our orders, you have been informed and may now leave."

Yzak's last words seemed to linger even after they had been spoken, because Shiho stared at Yzak in a mixture of confusion and hurt while Yzak just stared back looking just as cold as he had been before. A few seconds passed without neither of them saying anything and Dearka just stood there looking back and forth between them and was just as clueless as Shiho about what was going on.

Finally, Shiho raised her hand, saluted and then turned around.

As the door shut behind her Yzak just turned around to face the monitor instead. Dearka remained where he had been standing all alone, watching Shiho leave at first and then turning his eyes to Yzak. The latter seemed fully occupied with attempting to turn off the monitor, though Dearka guessed that it was just an excuse to not talk.

"What's up with you today?" Dearka asked, genuinely concerned.

"Are you trying to embarrass me more, Dearka?" Yzak questioned without looking at him.

Sighing, Dearka ran his hand through his ruffled hair.

"What have I done now?"

"Isn't it enough that the entire crew is laughing at my expense because of my mother's decision?" Yzak muttered, clearly annoyed. "Do you have to go and hit on the girl I'm engaged to?"

"It's just Shiho," Dearka said automatically, raising an eyebrow slightly. "That's why you're upset? Because you saw us in the hangar together?"

"I'm not!" Yzak snapped in response.

As he was still trying to turn off the monitor, Yzak proved that at the moment he was just as bad with technology as he was with lying. This caused Dearka to sigh again and cross the small distance between him and Yzak. Reaching out his hand to the control panel, he pressed a simple round button and the monitor went blank.

"You've seen us in the hangar a million times," Dearka went on, watching Yzak's face form a less than happy grimace. "You've been with us in the hangar a dozen times. And this is Shiho we're talking about, Shiho 'I-don't-like-the-ZAFT-miniskirt' Hahnenfuss. Even if I was trying to hit on her, and thank God that will never happen, do you really think she would let me?"

The scowl on Yzak's face slowly faded away to be replaced with a less intense glare, making Yzak look much less angry than he usually did. After a while even the glare disappeared, leaving only slightly narrowed eyes as Yzak pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over to Dearka.

"I'm not in love with her," he confessed truthfully. "I just don't like people having yet another excuse to laugh at me."

"Okay," Dearka answered, knowing that he shouldn't push the subject further. Instead he unfolded the piece of paper and read it. "What the hell is this? They're telling us to monitor the colony for two days and then just go back to Aprilius right away?"

"And four weeks leave," Yzak finished. "I am to report to the Council about our current mission and receive orders for a new one but that's it."

"Four weeks leave!" Dearka repeated. "Last time we had to threaten them with mutiny just to get five days! What the hell was the Council smoking when they issued this?"

"More like my mother's connections," Yzak replied, eyes narrowing again. "This is what she sent to me."

He pulled out a second piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to Dearka. The moment Dearka laid his eyes on it he had to remember all that his long friendship with Yzak meant to him in order to not burst into heartilly laughter. Still, the corners of his mouth twitched and every fiber of his being was begging to laugh.

The note, a draft of a wedding invitation, read:

_"You are cordially invited to the wedding of  
Yzak Jule & Shiho Hahnenfuss"_

The date on the invitation was July 12th, in exactly two and a half weeks.


	3. Discord

**Partially Awake  
Chapter 3: Discord**

_Author's Notes: Again, thank you so much for the reviews. Here's another chapter, a bit longer than the other two but I hope you'll like it. Don't hesistate to let me know if you do, I'm really enjoying writing this fanfic and seeing people who like reading it makes me equally happy. :-)  
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Flipping the coin from his fingers, Dearka caught it quickly again as it fell down and pressed it against the palm of his hand.

Tails, again.

Shrugging without much thought, he turned the coin over and flipped it up in the air again.

These simple actions, repeated over and over again were starting to become so much more than a small irritation in Yzak's mind. He heard the sound of the coin flipping from Dearka's fingers, the dull sound of the coin landing in his hand again and remaining there only for a few brief moments before being flipped up in the air again. Without noticing it himself, Yzak tightened his hold on his pen and wrote with such force that the ink soaked through the paper and made marks on his desk. Yet Dearka just sat there on the other side of the desk, slouching in his chair and with his feet resting quite comfortable on another chair, and flipped the coin again. Over and over and over and over and over again...

"STOP THAT!"

Dearka nearly full out of the chair and felt as if his heart would just right out of his chest. Although he quickly regained his balance, the sense of fear did not exactly go away when he looked up to see Yzak looking at him as if he wanted to kill.

"If you do that one more time I'll have you demoted again and on cleaning duty twenty-four seven!" Yzak threatened loudly.

Deciding that demotion was clearly not worth the momentary feeling of entertainment he got when he flipped the coin, Dearka immediately placed it back in the safety of his pocket.

"Sorry, just bored that's all," he explained.

"Then get back to work," Yzak muttered, turning back to the report he was writing. "You've been hanging around here for the past hour doing nothing."

Dearka raised an eyebrow.

"Are you kidding me? The council sent us out on a scouting mission without any other orders. Now we're stuck here in the middle of nowhere and have to stay here for another thirty-six hours before we can start a several days long journey back to PLANT. I got all of my work done on my way here, the tech crew was practically begging me to let them take apart something and put it back again."

"Then let them," Yzak answered without looking up. "If people just concentrated on working more they wouldn't have the time to complain. Go find something to do, unlike some people I actually have work to do."

Sighing, Dearka got up from his chair and started to walk towards the door. Halfway there he stopped and turned around to face Yzak once again.

"Oh by the way... have you talked to Shiho yet?"

Yzak looked up.

"Shiho?"

"Yes?"

"No, I haven't," Yzak replied, his anger having faded away to be replaced with slight curiosity instead. "Why?"

Dearka shrugged again.

"No reason, just thought that she might not be that happy with you after the meeting," he told. "I haven't seen her around lately."

"So you automatically assume it's because of me?" Yzak retorted.

"Well... yes."

Seeing Yzak's eyes narrow in their usual manner, Dearka crossed the little distance that was left between him and the door. He pushed the open button and although the door slid open quickly, he felt as if he could not get out of the office soon enough.

"I'll leave you to your work," he said with a smile just as he walked through the door. "But just a friendly advice... if there's one thing that women do best it's holding grudges."

With that he left Yzak to soothing silence. At least it would have felt soothing if Yzak's head was fully occupied with thinking about what Dearka had just said. Nonsense, that was what Dearka's words were. For a guy who couldn't get his own relationships with women right he had a lot of nerve telling Yzak what to do. As far as Yzak knew there was nothing wrong between him and Shiho, just because they had not spoken ever since the meeting did not mean that something was wrong.

It didn't have to mean anything at all.

He had mostly confined himself to his own office and quarters to deal with all the paperwork that was piling up. She was probably busy with something else as well, Dearka was clearly overanalyzing things. It was Shiho after all, she was not that sensitive.

Yzak kept all of this in mind as he finally emerged from his office hours later, intending to stop by the bridge to see how things were going. Just as he entered the corridor he caught sight of red and brown and saw that Shiho was on the other side of the corridor. Her right hand was on the railing that ran along the wall, pushing it slightly to move forwards and towards Yzak. She did not look angry at all, in fact she looked pretty normal.

_Perfect timing,_ Yzak thought, almost wishing that Dearka was there so that he could see for himself that everything was okay.

As Shiho came closer and closer towards him, Yzak struggled to find something to say to her. Asking her to give a brief report on her work seemed a little too random, especially since he really had no idea about what she had done since they had last seen each other. But other than work there weren't really any other topics he could think of, after all work was what they had in common. Finally Yzak decided to ask for her personal opinion on how some of the rookies were doing and if their simulation training had improved. She was closer now, only a few feet away and raised her hand in a salute. With the start of a greeting and a sentence on the tip of his tongue, Yzak opened his mouth...

...and watched Shiho go right past him.

Yzak grabbed on to the railing and stopped, blinking a few times as if he couldn't believe what he had just seen. Looking over his shoulder he saw that Shiho had dropped her salute and her eyes were looking straight forwards. A few seconds later she reached and pressed a button. The elevator door opened quickly and she disappeared behind it, leaving Yzak alone in the middle of the silent corridor. She had not even noticed that he had stopped and turned around to look at her.

Even though she was already gone Yzak stared wide eyed at the elevator door.

_What the hell was that!_ he thought to himself, more shocked than anything else.

It was not as if the corridor was really spacious and she hadn't seen him. She had even saluted at him! Usually she was one of two people on the ship would spontaneously talk to him when they met in the corridor, whether the talk was regarding work or just a small battle of wits. The surprise Yzak felt slowly transformed into the brewing sort of anger and he trudged on, fuming over Shiho's behaviour.

_What the hell is her problem!_ he asked himself. _I haven't done anything! Women!_

By the time he arrived at the bridge his previous good mood was completely gone, his head felt like it would explode and he had completely forgotten why he was heading towards the bridge in the first place. While the captain and the bridge crew stared at him silently, waiting for some sort of order or any word from him, Yzak just had his eyes on one person.

"DEARKA!" he shouted and literally dragged his friend away from a petite blonde by the communications center. Not until they were in the corridor outside the bridge did Yzak let go of Dearka, although the tone of his voice was still the same as ever. "TELL ME WHAT HER DAMN PROBLEM IS!"

"Geez, take it easy," Dearka said, making a face at Yzak's constant screaming. "Her problem? Well, her name is Maggie, she's a little sad because she broke up with her boyfriend, but I was this close to having her say yes to a date when we get back to PLANT..."

If Yzak got a penny for every time he wished that ZAFT commanders were allowed to whack their subordinates with a baseball bat he would have been able to build his own PLANT by now.

"I was talking about Shiho," Yzak said through gritted teeth, using every ounce of control to restrain himself. "What the hell is her problem!"

"Your tendency to attempt to damage everyone's hearing, perhaps?" Dearka sighed. "She _might_ have gotten a little upset with the way you basically told her to get out of the meeting room last time."

Although Yzak had heard it before, hearing it again simply reinforced the anger he felt upon knowing that someone could actually get upset because of something as simple as that. With a not so discreet scowl, Yzak just turned around and walked away.

"If you would just tell her you're sorry..."

"SHUT UP!"

Dearka watched him go, then returned to the bridge and the communications center with a weary smile.

"Can I borrow this for a while?" he asked Maggie, who gave him her headset with a quiet nod. "Thanks."

Putting it on, Dearka quickly hit a few keys on the keyboard and started to type in the commands. Moment later a new window opened on the monitor before him, revealing Shiho working in the cockpit of her ZAKU.

"Hey, feel like joining me in the mess hall for dinner?" Dearka asked. "I heard that the food is actually edible today."

Shiho looked up and pushed her keyboard away.

"Sure thing, nothing to do around here anyway."

"Perfect," Dearka smiled. "I'll meet you down in the mess hall in a second."

With that, he closed the window and the communication link to Shiho. As he took off the headset and handed it back to Maggie, he did not fail to notice her less than pleased look as she snatched the headset back and put it on. Dearka watched her typing furiously at her keyboard, clearly pretending that he was no longer there.

"So, about next weekend..." he started.

"Are you going to go and meet Shiho Hahnenfuss in a few seconds?" she cut off, annoyed.

Her question only made Dearka's smile broaden.

"No."

* * *

His own reflection glaring back at him from the elevator doors, Yzak felt as if the elevator could not go fast enough. He needed to get back to the residential area and his quarters. Exactly why he didn't know, although that the fact that he was so upset that it was pretty much certain that he was going to strangle the first person he saw seemed like a good enough reason. 

Just thinking about things made him feel as if he was going out of his mind. She wasn't talking to him just because he had told her to get out of the meeting room. Of all the reasons in the world why one would get upset, her reason seemed to hold a pretty low position on the list. He had not even told her to get out, if he remembered it correctly he had just told her to that she was allowed to leave. It wasn't like he had thrown her out of the room, she could have stayed just like Dearka.

Dearka.

The memory of Dearka and Shiho in the hangar flashed through his mind briefly and strangely enough he felt his face redden when thinking about it. He had walked in there to ask them to come to the meeting room with him and for some reason he felt something strange when he saw them. They were smiling, floating around together and although Dearka had let go later, they had held hands at one point. In a way the very thought of that memory disturbed him although it was difficult to explain in a logical way.

The elevator doors suddenly opened and Yzak, in deep thought, prepared to step forwards and leave the elevator. Just as he was about to get out he looked up and saw the familiar corridor leading to the hangar rather than the residential area. This wasn't the right deck. Someone brushed past the door in a hurry and it was not until that person stood inside the elevator that Yzak found himself standing right next to Shiho Hahnenfuss inside the elevator.

"Commander."

She saluted but her voice was cold and indifferent.

"At ease," Yzak muttered and looked away, the feeling of anger starting to brew inside him again.

Shiho said nothing in response as she dropped her salute. She looked away from him as well and Yzak noticed how she was attempting to stand as far away from him as possible without actually pressing herself against the wall. It fuelled his anger even more and he took extra special care to not stand too close to her either. They both stood there in tense silence, looking away from each other and acting as if they were completely invisible to each other.

The elevator door closed before them and started to move. The glowing numbers on the small monitor above the door told him that he was only three decks away from the residential area. He caught himself glancing at Shiho and saw that she had not pressed any buttons, meaning that she was going to the residential area as well or the mess hall seeing as they were on the same deck. Remembering that he was supposed to ignore her, Yzak quickly looked away.

Just three decks left.

Three.

Two.

One...

Suddenly the whole world seemed to turn upset down as everything turned pitch black, the screeching sound of metal against metal seemed to pierce through his ears and into his very skull. For what could have been both a moment and an eternity everything shook violently, making him lose his balance and drop to his knees. Then suddenly it was over and all the shaking and the sounds were replaced by dead silence.

Yzak opened his eyes, although in the darkness it made little different. He felt a slight ache in his foot after falling down awkwardly but quickly concluded that it was not serious and would go away in a while. From the other side of the elevator he heard a quiet moan followed by a curse, reminding him that he was not alone.

"Are you alright?" he asked, reaching his arm out to find out exactly where she was.

"I'm fine..." Shiho answered. "Just a little... what are you doing?"

His fingers touched and instinctively he grasped it. It was light and soft and it took him a moment to realize that he was holding a lock of Shiho's hair in his hand. Yzak let go immediately and fortunately did not have to answer her question. A small lamp in the ceiling of the cage suddenly filled it with dim light. Now that he could actually see Yzak stood up and walked over to the elevator's control panel. At first he pressed the emergency button, then the numerical code to the bridge.

There was a small monitor above the control panel and in Yzak's mind the communications link to the bridge couldn't be established soon enough. The image on the monitor flickered slightly but a few seconds later the words "Link established" appeared blinking over the entire monitor, before switching to showing the bridge. Yzak opened his mouth to address the captain, but only found his jaw dropping as he saw Dearka there instead.

"Where's the captain!" he demanded.

"The night shift has started, remember?" Dearka reminded casually. "The captain is off duty for another eight hours so I'm in charge until then. So, what's up?"

"Elevator three is malfunctioning," Yzak informed sternly. "Get someone to fix it and get us out of here now."

"Ah, I heard that there was something wrong with that one," Dearka answered and Yzak's eyes widened a little upon seeing him so casually lean back in the captain's chair. "I'll get someone down there in a minute."

"IN A MINUTE!" Yzak yelled, gripping the sides of the monitor so hard that his knuckles whitened.

After all the years he had known Dearka, he had learned that Dearka had a certain kind of smile when he was up to no good. The smile on Dearka's lips was starting to resemble it, no matter how dreadful the thought was to Yzak.

"Well, I was thinking about what you said earlier... the thing about if people worked more they wouldn't have the time to complain? So I've put everyone who's not off duty on some sort of assignment and you told me to let the tech crew do whatever they wanted to keep busy so they're up in their ears when it comes to work. I'm sure someone will be there soon though, so hang in there."

The monitor suddenly went blank but Yzak continued to stare at it, not knowing whether laughing, crying, screaming or kicking was the appropriate action for the moment. He lost track of how long he stood there just staring at the monitor but it was only when Shiho roughly shoved him aside that he stopped staring.

Furious was an understatement when it became to describing Shiho at that moment. She was pressing the bridge code like there was tomorrow and each time the words "Link denied" appeared she looked as if she was ready to punch in a few walls.

"I can't believe this!" she called out. "That bastard... he set us up!"

Yzak just stared at her, still in a daze over what was going on. He knew the look in Dearka's eyes and knew that they weren't getting out of the elevator until Dearka decided that it was time. This was out of line, this was clearly out of line. Someone was definitely getting hit with a baseball bat later whether commanders were allowed to do it or not. Almost burning with rage he pushed Shiho away from the control panel and resumed his attempts at making contact. The bridge was not responding, but even when he tried every code he could remember to every location on the ship the result was still the same.

**Link denied.**

After Dearka, this control panel was going to experience the full power of his wrath.

"DAMNIT!" he cursed, slamming his forehead against the wall as he punched in the code for the last time.

"Dearka is so dead," Shiho whispered from where she stood and stared at the elevator door as if she was thinking of trying to physically break through it.

"No kidding," Yzak muttered, backing into a corner and sitting down. "We'll see who's laughing when he gets assigned to scrubbing floors."

"Make it permanent," Shiho suggested with a dry laugh but Yzak did not smile.

He sat quietly in his corner, looking at nothing in particular. In the corner of his eye he saw Shiho sitting down in the corner across him, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. His eyes half hidden by his silver hair, Yzak carefully studied Shiho as she sat there. With her knees drawn up she bore little resemblance to the soldier Yzak was used to seeing, even though she was wearing her uniform. She looked smaller and softer in a way and he cursed quietly to himself when he couldn't find the right words to describe things.

Suddenly her piercing violet eyes met his.

"I'm supposed to be angry with you."

Yzak raised his head a little and looked at Shiho fully.

"What...?"

"You always snap at people," Shiho continued. "You snap at everyone, I get that and I'm used to it. The thing is that you never do it without a reason, no matter how weird it is. But in that meeting you didn't."

Not knowing what to say, Yzak just looked away and stayed quiet. They sat like that for a while, until finally he heard Shiho sigh.

"Fine, be that way."

She turned away from him, preferring to face the wall. Yzak stayed the way he was, silent and thinking about the words she had just said. He had snapped at her that day, perhaps it was because he had seen her and Dearka in the hangar. Perhaps it had been the weird feeling he had gotten when he saw them, perhaps it was because he did not want people to think that Dearka was hitting on the very person he was engaged to. Perhaps it was because of the orders he had received, perhaps it was the draft of the wedding invitation that his mother had sent to him. There were so many perhapses that he did not know which on it was and before he knew it he had a minor list of possible reasons why he had snapped at her that day.

The thing was... neither one them was actually because of her.

Everything was dead quiet in the elevator cage with none of them talking or even moving. There were no sounds coming from outside, confirming their belief that Dearka was in no hurry in getting someone to fix the elevator. Yzak opened his mouth slightly, intending to say something but his mouth remained opened as no words came out.

What was he supposed to say anyway? That he was sorry but he didn't know why because there were a couple of million possibilities as to why he had snapped at her? He didn't even know why it she had to take it so seriously, everyone lost their temper once in a while.

_But you do it a lot more than once in a while,_ a voice in Yzak's head whispered.

The same voice in his head told him that the right thing to do would be to apologize.

If that suggestion had come from someone else, Yzak would have made that person number three on his list of people and objects to inflict physical damage on.

Almost forcing himself to not look at her and continue staring at the spot on the wall, Yzak decided that the best thing to do was to just stay quiet for the time being. She was looking at him, he could practically feel it in the back of his neck. More silent seconds passed, each one feeling like an unbearable eternity to him. He was not, definitely not, going to apologize for such trivial thing as snapping at her and he was definitely not going to turn around and look at her.

Still staring at the wall, he concluded that the spot had an unusual shape and color. It was likely that a member of the crew had accidentally caused it while the Voltaire was docking at Aprilius, seeing as the shape of the spot implied that it had been created in a place where there was gravity. He would have to find out who the irresponsible crew member was and think of a proper punishment.

"...imsorry."

The words came out before he had the chance to stop him, as if someone else inside him had actually spoken them. He immediately felt like slamming his head against the wall, especially after all the time he had spent telling himself that he was not going to apologize. From the other corner of the elevator he heard Shiho shift slightly and there was a few seconds of silence before she spoke.

"What did you say?"

Scowling, Yzak cursed quietly to himself.

"I said I'm sorry," he muttered in a low voice. "You happy now?"

He heard her shift again and seconds later she came within his sight, having crawled over to his side of the elevator. Yzak looked up and met her eyes. For a while they sat there in silence, he had no idea what she was thinking but the only thing that went through his mind was that the more he looked into her eyes the more he noticed their extraordinary color. She had striking violet eyes, eyes that watched rather than just saw things.

"We can't let petty things get between us," Shiho spoke suddenly. "Not if we're going to work together and get out of this engagement."

Upon hearing the word engagement Yzak suddenly remembered the deal he had struck with Shiho a few days ago. Strangely enough, despite all the talk of their engagement and his mother's arrangement, he had almost forgotten the talk he had had with her and their agreement. Breaking off all eye contact he shifted slightly so that he would not be looking directly at her every time he looked up.

"Mother has set the date for the wedding," Yzak told. "It's in two and a half weeks."

Shiho let out a frustrated sigh and leaned heavily against the wall behind her. She looked like she was three seconds away from wanting to kill herself.

"Great, great, wonderful!" she exclaimed. "What's next? Grandkids?"

When Yzak just gave her a look, Shiho's expression changed from frustrated to somewhere between disgust and pure fright.

"Don't answer that one."

"We need a plan," Yzak stated. "I'm not marrying you!"

"Hey, my life's ambition isn't exactly to become your wife either!" Shiho retorted. "I mean you're not exactly husband material..."

One hit. Yzak felt his eye twitch slightly.

"...marrying you would be like marrying a big kid who clearly needs anger management classes..."

Two hits. Yzak clenched his fist.

"And let's face it, with the way your mother controls your life..."

Three hit combo!

Feeling like he was about to explode from anger, Yzak stood up abruptly. Shiho looked at him curiously from the floor, as if she really had no idea why he was looking so angry. Her lack of understanding only made him see red and filled him with more fury than he thought was possible. His clenched fist, almost hidden behind his back, shook as he stood before her.

"You aren't PERFECT either!" he shouted. "Your handwriting is awful, I've seen your reports! You lose to Dearka in simulations, you get mad for stupid reasons! And you wear a male uniform, WHAT THE HELL is up with that! You're not woman enough to actually wear the female uniform! God knows that everyone else here thinks that you look more like a guy, even Nicol looked more than a girl than..."

Considering how fast Yzak was talking, it was a wonder that Shiho had the time to react, get up and raise her hand. In the brief moment that Yzak had the time to think and was still in the middle of his ranting, he actually thought that she would slap him.

She didn't.

In the blink of an eye she threw a forceful punch right at Yzak's face, sending him stumbling backwards and colliding rather painfully with the wall. His first thought, after the flash of white light had disappeared, when he fell to his knees moments later was that he really should have seen it coming. His second thought had more to do with stars and more white light but he quickly concluded that it was because of the punch.

Automatically pulling himself up on his feet, Yzak gently touched the area on his cheek where she had struck him. He felt a dull ache and a burning sensation as his fingertips made contact with his cheek. Looking up he saw Shiho glaring at him, fist clenched and giving him the distinct impression that there was more from where that punch came from.

"What's the penalty for husband assault these days?" he hissed.

"We're not married yet," Shiho snapped sharply, her eyes looking directly into his.

"So we're back at square one."

"I guess we are."

"Good."

"Good."

Still holding his hand to the sore spot on his cheek, Yzak refused to break off the angry staring contest they were having. Shiho stood on her side of the elevator, everything about her cold not to mention her eyes. Yzak, however, felt more like strangling her at the moment. How dare she punch him and not even look slightly remorseful? Issues regarding ranks and protocol between ZAFT commanders and their subordinates aside, Yzak's heart pounded on in anger as he thought about what she had done. Had it been anyone else he would have punched back. But this whole situation was ironic. He had gotten punched because he had gone on and on about how little of woman she was and now he couldn't punch back because she was a woman.

"Are we done playing games yet?" Shiho questioned. "This is getting tiresome."

"From just throwing one punch?" Yzak sneered. "And here I was thinking that you are a ZAFT elite soldier. It couldn't have been easy for someone like you to make it... perhaps you did use your female charms to get all the way here."

He watched how Shiho's expression changed to pure shock as she figured out what he was implying. Moments later her face was filled with rage and she raised her right fist again, only this time Yzak was prepared. As she lunged at him he swiftly stepped aside, grabbed her arm as it zoomed past his face and twisted it in an armlock. A muffled groan escaped her lips as he pushed her against the wall and used free arm and his own body to lock her position.

"Get this..." he hissed, his face close to the back of her neck. "The only reason why you're not being pounded to death is... God, I don't even know why. You're mad at me, I get it and I even APOLOGIZED! But do I get the slightest..."

Yzak's voice suddenly faded as he felt Shiho shake beneath him. He stared wide eyed at her, panic creeping up on him as he thought that he had actually hurt her. All kinds of thoughts rushed to his mind, thoughts of Shiho's wellbeing, regret, fear and anger towards himself. In all this he saw several scenarios before him, Shiho with a dislocated shoulder, or a broken wrist and her sinking to the floor crying. None of them sounded preferable above the other and Yzak stared at the back her neck with dread.

However, what he did not expect was to hear her laugh.

He blinked at first, unsure of what he was really hearing. Her body shook beneath his but not out of pain or anguish but out of laughter. Although he could not see her face that well he saw her half closed eyes and heard the laughter escape her smiling lips. It was a true laughter rather than a psychotic one, which would have been more fitting for the situation. Then again, Yzak knew a psychotic laughter when he heard one, being the son of Ezaria Jule and having served under Rau Le Creuset after all.

"W,what's so funny!" Yzak exclaimed once he had regained the ability to think properly.

Leaning forwards against the wall, Shiho struggled to speak properly, breathe and continue to laugh hysterically at the same time.

"Don't you... heh, just occurred to me..." More laughter. "...you don't suppose Dearka is sitting somewhere watching all of this?"

Automatically looking over his shoulder, Yzak suddenly saw it for the first time.

A surveillance camera rigged in the upper corner of the elevator cage, directed right towards the spot where Yzak stood.

Exactly where he stood. If Dearka, or anyone else for that matter was watching, they would have seen that for the past few minutes their captain had pinning his subordinate and now fiancé up against the wall. They would have certainly not missed the fact that he had been standing so close to her that he had felt her entire back against his body and that he had been close enough to feel the scent of shampoo in her hair.

Feeling as if someone had dropped a bucket of ice over him and cheeks burning hot at the same time, Yzak immediately let go of Shiho and practically jumped away from her.

"DEARKA, you pervert! It's not what it looks like!" he yelled towards the surveillance camera.

The camera continued to film him menacingly.

Yzak clenched a shaking fist.

"DEARKA! Get us out of here NOW!"

With that, all the gene manipulation and physical education lessons he had ever had paid off as Yzak made a surprisingly high jump and reached towards the surveillance camera. His fingers laced with a couple of cords and he pulled at them roughly as he landed back on the floor. A buzzing sound came from the surveillance camera and lasted for about two seconds before the whole thing shut off.

While Yzak looked at his work almost proudly, Shiho had just about managed to stand up straight and was still doing her best to suppress her laughter. Yzak felt his eye twitch in irritation.

"It's not funny!" he snapped.

"No, of course it's not," Shiho agreed but the broad smile on her lips betrayed her. "I absolutely agree."

"We're supposed to be out convincing people that we're bad for each other, I fail to see the humor in this," Yzak muttered, not knowing whether to blame himself or something else for feeling like slamming his head repeatedly against the elevator door.

Shiho's smile faded away surprisingly quickly and instead was replaced with a somewhat concerned frown. Faint memories from anger management classes coming to mind, Yzak took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself down and sat down right across the elevator door.

"How do we do this?" he asked solemnly. "We'll be heading back to Aprilius tomorrow and will be there in a few days. By then we'll have two weeks to convince my mother and your parents to call the whole thing off. How the hell are we going to do that in just two weeks?"

Shiho walked over to him and slowly sat down beside him.

"We might have to involve strippers and a lot of whipped cream," she suggested casually and met Yzak's panicked eyes. "I'm kidding. But seriously, we'll do whatever it takes to get them to break it off, right? When I say whatever it takes, I really mean whatever it takes."

"I think we both know that already," Yzak responded. "The question is exactly _how_ do we do this?"

"We'll figure it out when we get back. Just have to act in the worst possible way when we're in front our parents. It can't be that difficult, just do everything you know your mother would hate you doing."

Everything his mother would hate him doing? Just the sentence sounded like something from a foreign language to Yzak, who just stared at Shiho with a puzzled look on his face. In return Shiho met his gaze with equal confusion, although for a different reason, and her eyes were mixed with disbelief.

"Please don't tell me you never went through the teenage rebellion thing."

"Did you?"

"Well, let's just say that you can pretty much compare me with the last bit of toothpaste that never comes out of the tube."

Opening his mouth to ask what the hell she was talking about, Yzak barely had the time say the first syllable of the sentence before his eyes started to hurt as the elevator cage once again became illuminated with normal, strong light. Before he knew it he felt it shake slightly before making an abrupt fall downwards. Hardly able to do anything but to shut his eyes, he felt something warm gasp his arm. Perhaps seeking protection, he instinctively pulled whatever it was as close to him as possible.

Just as suddenly as the elevator had begun to move, it stopped and stood completely still.

Even before Yzak opened his eyes, it dawned on him that during that small, bumpy ride he had pulled Shiho close to him. He felt her half lying across his legs, with her upper body held firmly by his arms. When he had finally adjusted enough to the strong light he opened his eyes and the first thing he saw were her dazed eyes.

Both of them suddenly heard a swishing sound and when they both turned around they saw the elevator door opening before them.

Standing on the other side was none other than Dearka and right next to him three of the technicians on the ship. Four pair of eyes widened as they saw the compromising position of their commander and his fiancé but none actually said anything. Faint blushes rising to both Yzak's and Shiho's faces, they quickly let go of each other and stood up properly, making sure that they were standing at least three feet apart. Shiho was the first to exit the elevator and also the first one to approach Dearka, who had regained enough thought to resume his usual teasing.

"Well, I guess the two of you weren't that bad off in there after all," he smiled.

Mustering all the dignity that they could, Yzak and Shiho wordlessly began to walk away from the elevator.

However, neither missed the chance to kick Dearka in his shins as they passed him.


	4. Delay

**Partially Awake  
Chapter 4: Delay**

**Author's Notes: **I was very shocked upon reading the reviews for the last chapter, but shocked in a good way considering the good response. I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed and read the last chapter, your responses has made me way beyond happy. I never knew how many Yzak/Shiho fans were out there. Speaking of them, would anyone be interested in seeing a LiveJournal community dedicated to them or something like an drabble/fanfic/art challenge? Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!

* * *

As cliché as it sounded, there was no other way to describe the day other than dark and gloomy. The moment the Voltaire docked at the military base at Aprilius One and Yzak disembarked, he heard the sound of rain drops and looked out the nearest window to see that it was pouring outside. Pouring almost seemed like an understatement when he looked at the rain and saw the people who happened to be outdoors. From the way they reacted it seemed more like someone was constantly spraying them water from a water hose. But he paid little attention to it, after all the rain would probably stop by the time he would leave the base. So he did his paperwork, talked to his superiors and took his time to assure that everything was properly arranged before picking up his bag and heading towards the exit. 

As the sliding doors opened before him, he saw that it was still raining.

Groaning in annoyance, he wondered what idiot had chosen to program rainy weather on a warm June day. It was not like they were on Earth and bound by the laws of nature.

"If I didn't know better I'd say someone had fallen asleep on the weather controls again."

"You think that the flood last year would teach them to keep a closer watch on these guys," Yzak answered, recognizing Shiho's voice. He glanced at her quickly and saw that she was standing beside him all by herself. "Where's Dearka?"

"He got a ride home with that blonde girl from the bridge," Shiho told. "What are you going to do, get a cab?"

Yzak opened his mouth to answer but at the exact same moment a buzzing sound came out of no where. Both he and Shiho looked puzzled for a second, then Shiho reached into her pocket and took out a small cell phone. Her eyes widened as she read the name on the display and for a while Yzak thought that she looked as if she was frozen in time, the way she stood completely still. The cell phone, however, did not stop buzzing.

"Aren't you going to answer that?" he asked.

"No, I'm going to stare at it and hope that it will just disappear out of sight if I stare long enough," Shiho said without the slightest hint of sarcasm and sounding like she was totally serious about what she had just said.

Rolling his eyes, Yzak snatched the cell phone out of her hands and before Shiho had the chance to do anything, he flipped the cell phone cover open and answered the call. What the hell was she being so afraid of?

"This is Shiho Hahnenfuss' phone, Yzak Jule speaking."

From the receiving end of the phone he could hear a delighted gasp.

"Yzak, how lovely to finally be speaking to you! How have you been?"

It was the voice of a woman, Yzak's first impression was one that was slightly older than his mother and whose tone sounded much more formal in a way. Confused at the woman's familiarity with his name, he looked at Shiho for an explanation. The latter just gave him a "You have yourself to blame" look and said nothing.

"Fine," Yzak answered uncertainly and struggled to keep a frown off his chance when he looked at Shiho. "How have you been, ma'am?"

"Absolutely wonderful, thank you for asking," the woman replied. "Friedrich and I are so happy that you and Shiho are back already, we are looking forward to this joyous occasion. Speaking of my daughter, is she around?"

"Yes, she is," Yzak said with some satisfaction upon realizing who the lady was and seeing Shiho shake her head in panic at the slightest possibility of having her cell phone handed back to her. "I'll get her right away. It was lovely speaking to you, Mrs Hahnenfuss."

Despite Shiho trying to squirm away, Yzak grabbed her hand just in time and placed her cell phone in it. As if that was not enough, he used his other hand to make sure that her hands were secured around the phone. Shiho glared at him when he pulled away with a smirk but said nothing and instead raised the phone to her ear.

"Hi mom... how are you? Yes, I realized that I was going to call you the minute I got off the ship... no, of course I wasn't trying not to answer, I was just... doing something. ...I was looking through my bag. ...for a hair brush. Yes mom, I do own and use a hair brush."

There was a clear difference between Shiho as she normally was and the Shiho standing before him talking on the phone with her mother. The one before him felt almost alien in a funny way, the way she looked down at her feet when she spoke and mumbled incoherent answers. Once in a while when the high pitched voice on the other end became too much she would hold the phone about a feet away from her ear and afterwards resume the conversation when it was her time to speak as if she had listened to every word. Yzak stood there watching her, finding himself struggling to contain his laughter.

After a good ten minutes Shiho finally hung up with a relieved sigh, but did not stay that way for long. The moment she looked at Yzak again she looked like she wanted to tear him apart right there.

"Bastard."

"For being polite to your mother and answering the phone? Thank you."

"My mother has invited us for dinner," she told, crossing her arms. "She's invited your mom as well."

"So?"

"So?" Shiho repeated. "You do not realize the cycle of evil and eternal torture you have started by answering that phone call! You were nice, you were polite... my god, she's going to love you and that's so not what we want! This is my mother, first impression is everything to her!"

"We'll get her to un-love me then!" Yzak retorted. "She can't be that dangerous! Stop freaking out!"

"Who's freaking out?" Shiho yelled back, but then next moment she seemed to calm down as she realized what she was saying. Sighing again, she placed her cell phone back in her pocket. "Let's just call it a day... the dinner is at my parents' house, tomorrow night at seven, so let's..."

"...meet up and discuss our strategy before that?" Yzak finished.

"You read my mind," Shiho smiled. "See you tomorrow then?"

Yzak answered with a grunt and Shiho interpreted it as a yes. She gave him a light wave, then set off out in the rain to find a cab.

* * *

_"Dial this number and you have the chance to win..."_

Zap.

_"Salazar, I will have my revenge!"_

Zap.

_"The most common species of wombats is called Vombatus ursinus, or simply known as the common wombat..."_

Zap.

_"Oh Richard, I love you so much! But my father will never let us..."_

Hitting the power button on the remote, Yzak turned the TV off and dropped the remote carelessly on the coffee table. In the corner of his eye, he saw the remote bouncing off the coffee table and tumble to the floor but he remained completely unphased as he leaned back and rested against the soft cushions of his couch. The clock hanging on the wall above him kept ticking annoyingly and he did not have to look up to know that it was 5:13 p.m.

_Why the hell hasn't she called yet?_ Yzak asked himself for what felt like the hundredth time and did his best to resist crushing something with his bare hands.

5:14 p.m.

Dinner was less than two hours away, he still hadn't gotten dressed considering that he was supposed to meet Shiho before that. He reminded himself that it was her idea that they would meet up, therefore the fault was all hers for not calling him when she should have. Still, it did not lessen the simmering anger in Yzak's mind, he still felt like breaking something although considering how Spartan his apartment was when it came to decorations it was not so strange that he didn't find anything worth breaking.

_Screw her,_ Yzak thought as he rolled off the couch and up on his feet.

It was with a frown that he pulled off his T-shirt and took off the rest of his clothes. They ended up in a messy pile on the bathroom floor as he stepped into the shower. Normally he wouldn't have left them there but not even the cold water against his skin seemed to cool him down at the moment. He felt his heart pounding in a quiet, yet fast manner as if it was refusing to let him forget just how irritated he felt.

The bar of soap became the first victim of his impending wrath. He gripped it too hard and it slid out of his hand and tumbled to the floor. Cursing to himself he used every bit of restrain to not treat the shampoo bottle even harsher.

_That woman... she says this and that and in the end she doesn't even attempt to contact me!_

Yzak told himself that he did not care and that she could be kidnapped, abducted, captured for all it matter.

Ten minutes later he emerged from the bathroom, clad in a cotton bathrobe and walking into his room with a less than happy look on his face. Instinctively he pulled out a pair of pants and white shirt out of his closet. Looking at the clock on the wall as he buttoned his shirt, he noticed that dinner was now less than an hour and a half away.

He told himself that he should probably get to the shuttle port.

It was a pretty good idea, in fact the best one he had had all day. It crossed his mind that he had spent most of the day in front of the TV and waiting for Shiho to call but he promptly decided to ignore that. He would go to the space port and surprise his mother by greeting her there. After all, she was coming all the way from Martius One and her bodyguards aside, someone needed to make sure that she got to the Hahnenfuss residence safely.

Picking up his keys from the coffee table and feeling extremely pleased with his idea, Yzak headed towards the front door. Pressing down the door handle he opened the door and it swung open out in the corridor, barely missing the brunette who was standing right before it.

"...Shiho!" Yzak exclaimed, eyes widening as he stopped with one foot out the door and the other still inside the apartment.

"It's okay, no noses broken," Shiho replied and smiled sheepishly.

Yzak blinked, feeling nothing but shock at seeing her. But his state of shock only lasted a few moments and it didn't take long for it to be replaced with the feeling of anger that he had carried around all day.

"Why the hell didn't you call!" he asked rather loudly.

"I didn't have your phone number," Shiho answered with a sudden defensive tone in her voice and crossed her arms. "It's kind of difficult to call when you didn't give me a number and apparently you're one of those pesky people who prefer not to be listed in the phonebooks. So, I came over here instead. Speaking of calling, why didn't you? I mean, I'm sure you can access all information regarding me seeing as I'm in your group and all."

At that moment Yzak felt like just going back into his apartment and closing the door after him. Of course, that would be followed by locking the door, unhooking the phone and made sure that he remained completely unreachable until it was time to return to the Voltaire.

"...nevermind," he muttered and stepped out of the apartment fully. He locked the door quickly, then turned to Shiho again and grabbed her arm without actually looking at her. "Let's go."

"Go where?" Shiho questioned, struggling as Yzak tried to drag her away from the door.

"To your parent's house, where else?"

Yzak rolled his eyes as he dragged her down the stairs, deliberately avoiding the elevator considering that what happened at the Voltaire was still fresh in his mind. Shiho grabbed on to the railing with her free hand, thus stopping herself and Yzak from going any further.

"Dinner is in an hour and a half," she reminded. "And shouldn't we be discussing our strategy before that?"

Remembering what they were supposed to do in the first place, Yzak stopped and let go of Shiho's arm. But he remained standing right in the middle of the stairs and looked up at Shiho who was standing a few steps above him. For the first time since she got there he took a closer look on her. Her hair was in its usual style, bound at the end with a simple black, ribbon. Just like Yzak, Shiho wore both dark and light color, with a pair of gray tweed pants and simple, white cap sleeve blouse. With the black pumps and the black blazer she wore Shiho looked nothing but proper and respectable, like someone Ezaria would like.

Frowning, Yzak stepped up to the same step as the one Shiho stood on and pulled at the end of the ribbon, causing her hair to loosen from its bindings. A moment later he was working on unbutton Shiho's blouse from the top.

"W..what are you doing?" Shiho stuttered nervously, her face reddening rapidly.

"Strategy," Yzak answered, having unbuttoned the top three buttons and making her cleavage as low as possible without making her looking completely outrageous.. He stepped back a little, looking over Shiho again. "It won't do. The pants have to go."

With that he proceeded to drag her down the stairs again but they had hardly reached the exit before Shiho questioned him again.

"The pants have to go?" she repeated. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You look too proper," Yzak explained, exiting the building with Shiho and directing her to his car. "My mother will get a good first impression of you and that's not what we want."

He left Shiho standing by the right side of the car and got into from the left. As he sat down in the driver's seat, he saw that Shiho was still standing there even though the car door was wide open. Yzak sighed as he saw her arms crossed and assumed that she was less than pleased. A few seconds later Shiho bent down so that she and Yzak were at the same eye level.

"So what are we going to do? These are the kinds of clothes I wear."

Yzak rolled his eyes.

"Just get in the car and we'll fix this," he answered with restraint and swore that he was going to strangle her if she didn't get in now. For once his anger seemed to have some effect, because after a few seconds where she appeared to be thinking, Shiho got into the car and shut the door.

Yzak started his car with a roaring engine and speeded away from the parking lot like hell hounds were running after him. Shiho flew left and right in her seat every time he made a turn and suddenly the seat belt seemed to provide just as much security as a paper band.

"Could you slow down a little?" she asked but judging by the way Yzak left tire marks on the asphalt behind him she concluded that her request went unnoticed. "Where are we going anyway?"

Yzak did not answer and she could tell by his silence that this was not going to end well.

* * *

"I hate you." 

"Don't be stupid."

"No really, I hate you."

"You're being overly dramatic."

"Oh yeah? You try wearing this and not be dramatic."

Yzak turned his head a little and saw Shiho pulling at her pleated skirt in a misguided hope of making it longer. The skirt was not that short as it reached to a little above her knees and it did not seem that uncomfortable either. But Shiho's face, scrunched into an expression of dislike, clearly told him that she missed her tweed pants that currently lay folded in the back of Yzak's car along with her black blazer. The blouse was the only thing to have been kept and along with the addition of the skirt with pink flower patterns, large plastic earrings, a pair of pink strapped sandals, a bit of make up and her hair let loose she looked more girly than proper and respectable.

"What I don't get is why I have to be the one to dress differently and make a bad impression," Shiho grumbled. "You weren't this willing when I suggested that you make a few changes as well."

"That's because you told me to pierce my lip and get a pink wife beater," Yzak muttered, glaring at Shiho.

"Hey, I'm not the one who walked around with a giant scar on my face for a year."

Sighing, Shiho gave up pulling at her skirt and instead diverted her attention to the giant wooden door in front of them. They had been standing right on the doorstep of Shiho's parents house for a few minutes now and neither seemed that anxious to ring the doorbell.

"Fighting battles in space is preferable to this," Shiho said.

"Quit being such a coward and just ring the damn doorbell," Yzak muttered, although he felt a bit nervous himself. He was holding a bouquet of flowers though and thus had a valid excuse for not using his hands.

Their roles were almost reversed as Shiho was the one to shoot him a glare. However, after a while she turned away and brought her hand up. She rang the doorbell and then took a deep breath. Everything was quiet for a few seconds, and then they heard the quiet sound of footsteps and the door being unlocked. It swung open to reveal a young looking woman wearing a gray knee length skirt and a white shirt. Judging by her dull and simple attire Yzak assumed that she was either a maid or a housekeeper.

"Hi, I'm Shiho Hahnenfuss," Shiho introduced herself. "We're..."

"Yes, Mr and Mrs Hahnenfuss are waiting for you and Mr Jule in the lounge," the maid informed before Shiho had the chance to finish her sentence.

The maid stepped aside with such a wooden smile that it looked like it had been glued on. Yzak gave Shiho an odd look as they went inside but the only explanation he got was a discreet eye roll.

Upon entering the house Yzak instantly felt the sense of treading into a rich and old house. Of course, all houses in PLANT weren't really that old but the hand carved wooden furniture and elegant lamps, vases and other decorations told him that the Hahnenfuss household revelled in the classic Victorian look. The maid immediately took their jackets the moment they took them off and in the process also took the flowers Yzak had brought with him. Before he had the chance to protest, the maid gestured politely towards their left, which led to the lounge.

Yzak walked beside Shiho and noticed how in the next few moments her body seemed to tense up as if she was facing something immensely dangerous. They entered the lounge together, where a tall and broad man with grayed hair stood with two glasses in his hands. He handed one glass over to a woman with auburn hair who was sitting on a Victorian sofa. The woman happened to look up and caught sight of Yzak and Shiho.

"Shiho, you are here in time," the woman spoke, sounding genuinely surprised at the fact.

"Yes, mother," Shiho answered with an awkward smile.

"And you're wearing a skirt," the woman noted, even more surprised.

Yzak swore he saw Shiho's eye twitch slightly but she managed to calm down and look normal.

"Well, that's what you would normally call it," she said, still smiling awkwardly.

"A pink skirt with flowers on it," the woman went on.

"Well, I was originally going for skulls and chains with polka dots but they didn't have that at the store," Shiho laughed but it did not last long as tense silence filled the room along with the completely serious expression on the woman's face. "That was supposed to be a joke... you were supposed to laugh... uh, nevermind."

Both the man and the woman looked completely puzzled for a moment, then they both turned to Yzak and walked over to him.

"Yzak, how lovely it is to finally see you face to face," the woman spoke warmly and reached out her hand for Yzak to shake.

"Mother, father, this is Yzak," Shiho introduced as Yzak shook hands with her mother. "Yzak, meet my parents, Friedrich and Keiko Hahnenfuss."

"No need to be formal, just call me Friedrich, Yzak," Shiho's father said jovially and shook Yzak's hand with enthusiasm. "We're going to be family after all."

His words couldn't have scared Yzak and Shiho more.

"Have a seat," Keiko smiled and gestured towards the sofas. "Friedrich, could you make two more drinks please?"

"Coming right up!"

Following Keiko, Yzak and Shiho crossed the lounge and sat down in the sofa. Their fingers happened to touch as they both sat down and Yzak looked at Shiho to see her smiling sheepishly at him, as if trying to reassure him. Only when Friedrich offer them their drinks did they break hand contact. Keiko, who was sitting in another sofa across from them saw this small gesture and her lips formed a smile half hidden by the glass as she took a sip from her drink.

"So Yzak..." Friedrich spoke. "I hear the ship you are stationed on is the Voltaire? Very fine ship and I have to say that I am impressed that you have managed to come so far considering your age. I hope that the crew isn't giving you a hard time because of that."

"Not at all, sir," Yzak replied politely. "I have been very fortunate in that aspect."

"That's good to hear," Friedrich laughed. "I hope my daughter is not too much of an inconvenience for you."

"Not at all, sir. She is a good soldier, truly irreplaceable."

Despite how it often seemed the opposite, if Yzak truly wanted to he knew how to handle people quite well. Especially his superiors and those who were older, after all he was Ezaria's son and done his fair share of conversing politely. Judging by their reactions his compliment seemed to have worked. Friedrich raised his eyebrows a little in surprise and exchanged the same kind of look with his wife but overall they seemed very pleased with what they were hearing.

Shiho, however, did not.

Yzak only managed to catch a glimpse of her, not wanting to look at her directly and for her parents to see that he was staring. But the quick look he got told him that she was looking just as surprised as her parents at what he had said but much less happy. Before Yzak had the chance to give her a questioning look the doorbell rang loudly throughout the house. He heard the maid hurry down the hallway to open the door and moments later someone stepped inside. All four of them glanced towards the hallway to see a man standing there.

The man couldn't be described as anything but giant. He was probably bordering seven feet tall with broad shoulders and a dark skinned muscled body that not even modern genetic enhancement could make. The man was almost bald, with dark sunglasses covering half of his face and wearing a dark suit that looked like it had come straight from the store.

"My name is Kevin Jones, I am here to escort Mrs Ezaria Jule and ensure her safety," the man spoke solemnly in a low, deep voice. "I would like to speak to a representative of this household, preferably Mr Friedrich Hahnenfuss or..."

"Oh Kevin, you don't really have to do that every time I go and visit someone!"

Yzak turned his head fully to see his mother coming through the door, dressed in an elegant blue dress with a light blue jacket. He stood up automatically, as did the others.

"Ezaria, wonderful to have you here," Keiko greeted with a broad smile, approaching Ezaria and giving her a hug.

"Thank you, Keiko," Ezaria replied. "Arriving at the shuttle port was completely awful, all those people trying to elbow their way through the crowd. Fortunately I have Kevin and never have to worry about that. Friedrich, nice to see you!"

"Likewise Ezaria," Friedrich smiled and shook Ezaria's hand. Offering his arm to both ladies, he led them into the lounge with Kevin following them. "How are things?"

"They could be better but I'm not complaining. Kevin was assigned as my new bodyguard a few weeks ago and if you ask me he could use a bit lightening up. Isn't that right, Kevin?"

"Lightening up is not a part of my job description, ma'am."

"But you could sure use it. Oh, Yzak!"

Forcing a smile to his lips, Yzak hugged his mother and let her give him an airy kiss on each cheek. Judging by the way she spoke to Friedrich and Keiko, it seemed like nothing had changed with his mother since last time he had seen her. But he could tell that she was happy to get out of her house and considering how close Kevin kept to her and cast dark shadows by just standing there and being tall, he really couldn't blame her for being so enthusiastic about things.

"Hello mother," he greeted when she let go of her.

He expected a bit of motherly affection, asking him how things had been or at least commenting that he needed to take care of himself more. What he did not expect was how his mother almost pushed him aside after that quick hug and turned all her attention to Shiho.

"Ah, so this is my future daughter-in-law!" Ezaria said joyfully and took a long look at Shiho.

Yzak watched them with a bit of nervousness. His eyes went back and forth between the outfit that Shiho wore and to Ezaria. If it was anyone besides Shiho who hated pink flowery skirts, it was Ezaria. If it was anyone who disliked girls who looked like they cared more about fashion sense than common sense, it was Ezaria. With the way Shiho looked, this was bound to start the beginning of the end of the engagement.

"You look so much prettier than I could have ever imagined," Ezaria complimented with an honest smile. She brushed Shiho's hair aside lightly. "Those earrings are very cute, where did you get them?"

Shiho forced a smile.

"Actually Yzak bought them for me," she told, watching Yzak stare at her in horror upon seeing his plan on her making a bad impression being crushed into pieces.

"Oh, did he?" Ezaria was truly beaming with happiness. "You can't imagine how happy I am to hear that you two are getting along, you're a match made in heaven, aren't you?"

Shiho walked over to Yzak's side and he felt his entire body tense when she took his hand.

"Yes, he's the brightest star in my life," she agreed, faking another smile.

She squeezed Yzak's hand harder, causing him to grit his teeth in order not to cry out in pain. The fact that his body had tensed up upon her taking his hand was not because of nervousness or anything that silly. Despite Shiho going a very good job faking a smile for Ezaria and her parents, she was doing an even better job at digging her nails into Yzak's hand to show her dissatisfaction at the way things were going.

Yzak made a mental note to never, ever let her hold his hand again.

Fortunately the gathering in the lounge came to the end a few minutes later when the maid came in and announced that dinner was served. Friedrich offered his arms to Keiko and Ezaria and led them into the dining room. Yzak took this opportunity to wriggle his hand out of Shiho's grip.

"Damn it woman, are you insane!" he hissed as quietly as he could.

"That's what I should be asking you!" Shiho retorted, also in a hushed voice. "One, your whole plan of dressing me up isn't working squat! Two, what the hell were you thinking sweet talking my parents like that? We're not supposed to impress them!"

"What do you suggest I do? Spit in their faces every time they talk to me?"

"Miss Hahnenfuss? Mr Jule?"

Shiho and Yzak turned their eyes away from each other and saw that the maid was still standing there, obviously waiting for them to join their parents in the dining room. The maid stared at them with a stoned look and Yzak groaned inwardly for not making sure that they were alone before speaking. He silently offered Shiho his arm like a true gentleman and she took it like a proper lady. Together they exited the lounge and walked past the maid as if nothing had happened.

They rejoined their parents in the dining room and the food was served without any complications, aside from the maid giving Yzak horrible glances that made him feel like he was about to turn into stone any moment. Shiho felt it as well, as he noticed that she was slouching slightly as she sat as if she did not want to be noticed or looked at. Not that it mattered, Ezaria, Keiko and Friedrich seemed like they were in their own world as they spoke jovially. Keiko informed Ezaria of the latest gossip and considering everything she had to say the two of them could have probably gone on the entire evening, if not for the fact that a few things were simply too vulgar to be shared during dinner. Friedrich joined their conversation occasionally by adding a few details to the stories Keiko told.

Despite the topics Yzak felt grateful that it was not worse. He and Shiho spent most of the time poking around their food and when dessert finally was served he calculated that he would only have to endure about twenty minutes of more poking before dinner was over and about another hour he would be able to leave.

"...if I wasn't for the fact that his wife works with Friedrich I wouldn't even have invited them to the party tomorrow."

"We'll just have to make sure that he'll be kept away from the drinks, I'm sure Kevin can handle that. Of course, he'd have to take part of the toast..."

Yzak nearly choked on the soufflé, but managed to transform it into a barely audible cough. However, it was enough to gain the attention of his mother who was now staring at him with a rather concerned look on her face.

"Is something the matter, Yzak?"

Yzak bit his lip.

"No, it's just... you mentioned something about a party?" he asked casually.

"Ah, I see," Ezaria said, sounding rather delighted. "We forgot to tell you, didn't we? Since the wedding is so soon we decided that we had to hold the engagement party as soon as possible. We'll be hosting it right here tomorrow right, aren't we Keiko?"

"That's right," Keiko agreed, just as delighted as Ezaria. She looked towards Yzak and Shiho. "You two don't have to worry about a thing, we've taken care of everything for you."

Yzak's lips automatically formed a smile.

Inwardly, he was wishing that he had choked on the soufflé for real and died at the spot.


	5. Daughter

**Partially Awake  
Chapter 5: Daughter**

**Author's Notes: **As usual, thank you for all the reviews for the last and the previous chapter. :) I enjoy writing as it is, but seeing that people actually read this and like it makes me enjoy it even more.

For LJers (and everyone else), I created a Yzak/Shiho LJ community. It's located at (Replace the three – with / since doesn't show links or just go through the link in my profile). Hoping to see many of you there, writers, readers and Yzak/Shiho fans. :)

* * *

Saturday mornings had to be the most wonderful thing since before sliced bread and white chocolate. Even the sun was behaving on this particular Saturday. Although the warm rays of light had pulled her gently from sleep they were not so blindingly strong that they forced her out of her bed. Shiho was perfectly fine where she was, snuggling up against her fluffy pillow and practically buried underneath the thick covers.

It was the perfect morning.

The only thing that did not fit in was the constant ringing on the doorbell.

At first Shiho hid her head underneath the pillow, hoping that it might drown the sound out and that whoever was ringing the doorbell would just give up. But five minutes and a whole lot of sighs later Shiho rolled out of her bed rather clumsily. She wrapped the covers around her, attempting to keep the warmth of the bed with her, and dragged her feet as she made her way to the front door.

"Coming... it's only eight for crying out loud..."

Too tired to look through the peephole, she unlocked the door.

Upon seeing who was standing on the other side she instantly regretted her actions and asked herself how a perfectly, wonderful Saturday morning could suddenly go so wrong.

"Well, about time you answered the door," Keiko scoffed and walked right past Shiho and into the apartment.

She was followed by what seemed like a train of maids. At least a dozen of them entered the apartment, all of them dressed in the exact same gray maid uniform. Shiho stepped back to get out of their way but blinked a few times as if she was trying to make some sense of what was going on. The maids had already scattered across the apartment, each of them seemingly occupied with their own task. Some started to dust her bookshelves, others tidied up and she swore that she saw one of the maids polishing her stereo.

"I was starting to think that you had slept somewhere else," Keiko went on, oblivious to her daughter's confusion.

"Had I known you were coming I would have," Shiho murmured to herself.

"Did you say something?" Keiko asked absentmindedly, picking up a plain vase and inspecting it carefully.

"Nope, not a word," Shiho said quickly and dodged a maid who made a beeline for her bedroom. She drew the cover closer to her, longing for the perfect silence and warmth of the bed. "Why are you here this early?"

"Early!" Keiko repeated, shocked. "It's eight o clock!"

Shiho was just about to argue that that was exactly the point when one of the maids yanked the covers away from her. She was left standing half freezing in her T-shirt and pajama bottoms while glaring furiously at the maid who headed into the bed room with the covers. Meanwhile her mother had made her way into the kitchen and was right in the middle of inspecting the contents of her refrigerator.

"My goodness, do you have anything that's edible and hasn't been expired for the last three years in here?" Keiko exclaimed dramatically. She snapped her fingers and two maids came into the kitchen instantly.

"Yes, Mrs Hahnenfuss?"

"After you finish here you will go to the grocery store and buy some food for my daughter."

"Yes, Mrs Hahnenfuss!"

Slightly creeped out by the uncanny resemblance between the maids and worker bees, Shiho edged closer to her mother. But Keiko, who was finished inspecting the kitchen moved on to the bedroom and Shiho had no other choice but to follow. Upon entering her bedroom she saw that her bed had been made and that the blouse she had carelessly discarded last night was no longer lying on the floor where she had left it. Keiko walked straight over to the closer, opened the door and started to go through Shiho's clothes.

"Mother, what are you doing?" Shiho asked for the second time, crossing her arms.

"I'm trying to find something for you to wear to the engagement party tonight," Keiko asked. "White, gray, black, gray, navy... do you have anything that wouldn't be acceptable at a funeral?"

Ironically, just as she said that she pulled out a black leather top that looked more like a bra that even Catwoman would be ashamed to wear in public. Keiko looked at the top questioningly before Shiho quickly snatched it away from her.

"Costume party," she explained quickly, fiddling with her hair in an awkward way.

Satisfied with the explanation or perhaps just not wanting to know more, Keiko returned to going through Shiho's closet. After a while she stopped and sighed rather loudly.

"We'll just have to go shopping," she declared. "God knows how I managed to raise a daughter who doesn't know how to dress herself. It's a good thing that you have Yzak now, he seems to have noticed that you look so much better wearing a little more color."

Reminded of how she had been forced to wear a pink skirt and sandals all night only to have Yzak's plan backfire, Shiho said nothing.

"Go and get changed," Keiko ordered, placing a white buttoned shirt and a pair of black dress pants in Shiho's hands. "We have a lot to do today."

* * *

A few blocks away, Yzak was right in the middle of enjoying his Saturday morning. Like Shiho, he spent it in his bed and enjoyed the warmth and comfort that came with it. Unlike Shiho, he had the luxury of not being disturbed by dozens of worker bee maids running how in his apartment. Unlike Shiho, Yzak opened his eyes to see a large, robotic man towering over him.

"Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!"

Falling off the bed, Yzak reached for the closest thing he could use as a weapon, which happened to be a very round and safe alarm clock. From the other side of the bed Kevin just gave Yzak an odd look.

"Is something the matter, Mr Jule?" he asked in his wooden voice.

"...y...you!" Yzak stuttered, pointing at Kevin with the alarm clock and a shaking arm. "What the hell are you doing in my apartment!"

Kevin straightened his suit, not that it was needed. A wooden plank would look curvy and soft when in comparison to him.

"I was simply sent to wake you up," he responded. "Mrs Jule has made breakfast."

"Breakfast?" Yzak repeated, almost whispering.

That's when he felt it. The smell of eggs and toast. Slightly burnt toast, but at that moment it was not exactly the most important thing on his mind. Scrambling to his feet and still clutching the alarm clock like it was his last lifeline, Yzak slowly moved out of his bedroom, pressing his back against the wall to stay as far away from Kevin as possible. The latter did nothing but stand there quietly, making a very good imitation of a statue.

Yzak stumbled out of his bedroom and into the combined living room and kitchen. Standing by the stove was his mother, wearing a squared apron and in the middle of making scrambled eggs. She noticed Yzak almost immediately and flashed a smile towards him.

"Good morning!" she chirped. "Did you sleep well? You look a little tired, but considering how long we stayed with Friedrich and Keiko it's not strange. Are you hungry? Why don't you sit down and eat?"

His mind too fuzzy with tiredness to think, Yzak only heard the last bit. Without a word he sat down by the dining table and watched how his mother brought him what looked like the Mount Everest of breakfast plates, although he had to admit that it smelled good.

"Mother, how did you get in here?" he asked, trying to rub the sleepiness away from his eyes. "I didn't hear you ring the doorbell."

"Oh, that's because I didn't," Ezaria explained cheerfully. "I thought that you might be asleep so I asked Kevin to unlock the door for me. Did you know that he's trained to do these kinds of thing, picking locks and breaking in? Not mention that one of his references says that it comes with territory since he's also one of the best when it comes eliminating people in their sleep. Isn't that just the funniest thing you've heard?"

While Ezaria giggled to herself, Yzak was staring wide eyed at her with shock and thinking that what she had told him was far from the funniest thing he had heard. In the corner of his eye he could see that Kevin was eyeing him suspiciously. A chill running down his spine, Yzak grabbed a fork and started to eat the food his mother had made for him. Ezaria saw this and smiled.

"I'm so happy you're like my cooking!" she said, delighted as she sat down on the other side of the table. "You better eat as much as you can, we have a very big day ahead of us, not to mention something very important to do before the party tonight."

"What important thing?" Yzak questioned, not wanting another unplanned surprise to hit him like it had last night. Come to think of it, his whole life had been an unplanned surprise ever since his mother had decided to set him up with Shiho.

Ezaria leaned forwards slightly on the table, an almost crazy look in her eyes that made Yzak want to go back to his bed and crawl underneath the covers.

"It will be one of the most important moments of your life," Ezaria spoke in a whisper, as if she was afraid that she would taint the oh-so-important moment by speaking about it in a normal tone. "You better make sure not to mess it up, if you do... well, I will be less than happy."

Yzak froze completely, his spoon stopping halfway to his mouth. Ezaria leaned back in the chair, her cheerful manner returning again.

"You're so lucky to that I'll be spending my entire day helping you prepare for this!"

* * *

Her hands closing around the warm cup, Shiho took a deep breath and inhaled the wonderful, rich smell of hot chocolate. Unknown to herself, her lips formed the smallest smile just before she brought the cup to her lips and took a careful sip of the chocolate. 

"I see you still haven't tired of it."

Shiho put the cup down on the table to see her mother looking at her, or to be exact, the cup of chocolate. The two of them were sitting at a small but classy café at the mall having breakfast seeing as Keiko had deemed the food Shiho had in her apartment inadequate. Several breakfast rolls had been ordered and stood nicely arranged on a large plate, although Shiho hadn't touched any of them yet seeing as she had been too distracted by the cup of hot chocolate she had ordered. Keiko had not eaten anything yet either but by the looks of it she had not even sipped her tea.

"Hot chocolate," Keiko clarified. "You still enjoy it that much?"

"Yup, still do..." Shiho answered and felt uncertain upon not knowing exactly what her mother was trying to say.

"It's a miracle you can still drink it after all these years and not get tired of it," Keiko scoffed, eyeing the tea spoon as if trying to decide if it was sanitary enough for her to use. "I used to take you out for breakfast every Saturday morning when your father was working and you never wanted anything but hot chocolate. Not milk, juice, tea... always hot chocolate for breakfast."

Shiho shifted in her chair, suddenly feeling slightly uncomfortable.

"Well, I thought we should go through what needs to be bought for tonight," Keiko said suddenly, changing the topic entirely. "You'll need a dress, of course, and shoes to match. A bit of jewellery perhaps but we shouldn't go beyond wearing necklace but a discreet one, we wouldn't want it to steal all the attention. And about your hair..."

Shiho sipped her chocolate again, only vaguely aware of what her mother was talking about. Deep inside she was fully occupied remembering and thinking about why this was the first Saturday in seven years that mother and daughter had gone out for breakfast and hot chocolate.

* * *

Maggie reminded him of Miriallia. 

It wasn't the hair, because Maggie was blonde. It wasn't the eyes because they were green. It was certainly not the body, because Maggie was taller than Miriallia and a little curvier. It had absolutely nothing to do with the dress, because Maggie was wearing something pink that Miriallia would rather die than to be seen with. But Dearka knew exactly why he thought of Miriallia when he had first met Maggie.

"I was planning on heading into journalism before I joined," Maggie had told him. "I like writing."

Writing. Journalism. It was not difficult to connect those two things to photography and that girl who took photographs for a living.

That girl who was so far away from him.

That girl who captured the present yet could not bring herself to live in it.

That girl who never bothered to give back his heart.

Dearka sighed quietly to himself and finished the last of his champagne. A waiter walked by and Dearka placed the empty glass on the tray he carried. The waiter did nothing but offer Dearka a sympathetic smile, he knew from walking by several times just how many glasses Dearka had finished that night.

"Is everything alright?"

Dearka looked to his left to see Maggie standing beside him, her champagne glass more than half full seeing as she conversed more than drank. He forced a trademark smirk to his lips.

"Of course it is," he lied. "My best friend is getting married, I'm at his engagement party and you're here with me."

Maggie blushed slightly at his words.

"I'm going to go over to captain Hahnenfuss," she said shyly upon noticing that Shiho had been somewhat attacked by a group of guests consisting of Keiko's friends. "Got to offer my congratulations to the happy bride, right?"

"If you ask me she doesn't look that happy," Dearka noted. Shiho was unusually dressed up for this occasion, wearing a halter neck dress and her hair partially put up in a simple but elegant bun. But Dearka knew Shiho and could tell that she was not happy with what she was wearing that dress and that she preferred a million of other things above talking to her mother's friends about the engagement that she in reality wanted no party of. "Wouldn't be that strange though, considering everyone she's forced to talk to."

"I'll go over and save her from the old ladies then," Maggie laughed.

She left Dearka's side and he stood right in the middle of the garden all alone despite all the people who were at the party. In the corner of his eyes he saw his parents talking to Ezaria and he overheard how his mother reprimanded his father for once again bringing politics into the conversation. Other than them Dearka saw no one else he could talk to, all the other guests were friends of Shiho's parents and Yzak's mother, most of them affiliated with the Supreme Council in one way or the other. Despite the calm atmosphere of the party and the quiet music being played in the background, one could not help but to notice how this was a social gathering for the parents as much as the not-so-happy couple.

"Dearka, I need your help."

Dearka jumped upon turning a little to his right and seeing Yzak standing there as if he had appeared out of nowhere.

"God, you scared the hell out of me!" Dearka hissed in a hushed voice. Yzak said nothing in response, he only stood there quietly and staring intensely at something. It was then that it occurred Dearka that this was the first time he had seen Yzak all night, despite that Dearka had arrived at the party about two hours ago. "Where have you been?"

"I need your help," Yzak repeated in a robotic voice, paying no attention to Dearka's question.

Dearka looked at Yzak curiously and crossed his arms.

"I get that already... What's the problem?"

When Yzak still didn't answer, Dearka just sighed.

"Look, I can't help you if you don't tell me what's going on."

Yzak finally took his eyes of whatever he was looking at and turned to Dearka. He still had not said a word and rather than opening his mouth he just stared at Dearka with the most serious face that he had ever put on. The saying actions speak louder than words actually applied for once when all Yzak had to do was to give him a look and show him what was in his hand. No words, no explanations. Upon seeing this and gaining full understanding of what was going on, Dearka just nodded and gave his friend a smirk and reassuring smile combined.

"Don't worry, I'll cover you."

He proceeded to walk through the crowd immediately, Yzak silently following him with a bit of safe distance between them. Neither of them stopped until they found the people they were looking for. In Dearka's case, it was Maggie.

"How wicked of you ladies to distract my date," he said in his most charming voice and smile to the old ladies surrounding Maggie and Shiho. He slipped his arm around Maggie's waist more affectionately than usual, causing Maggie to look slightly confused. However, none noticed this as most of the ladies were too busy with Dearka.

"Dearka Elthman, you're every bit the charmer that your father was when he was your age," one of them complimented with a chuckle.

"Thank you, but you have to admit that I look a whole lot better than him," Dearka replied, winking.

It was a trick that worked with every woman he had met, save for the one that he couldn't get. But the ladies, fully distracted by Dearka and his smooth talking, did not notice how Yzak snuck up behind Shiho and grabbed her by her arm. Shiho just had the time to look at Yzak questioningly before being dragged away from the group. He lead her through the garden quickly, deliberately walking around so that as few people as possible would notice them. Before Shiho knew it she found herself indoors, standing right in the middle of the kitchen inside the house.

Yzak closed the door behind him.

"What are you doing?" Shiho asked, massaging her arm a little from his rough treatment.

"I need to talk to you," Yzak answered stoically.

Shiho just rolled her eyes.

"Couldn't you have said it without dragging me all the way in here?"

"I needed to talk to you alone."

"Well, newsflash Yzak! We're not alone!"

The solemn and serious look on Yzak's face disappeared to be replaced with confusion and it took a few seconds for him to realize that even though they were alone in one section of the kitchen, there were at least three maids and just as many waiters standing on the other side watching them with great interest.

Suddenly the urge to slap himself was very tempting.

"Let's go," he muttered, grabbing Shiho's wrist and pulling her out of the kitchen.

Despite her struggling against him, he managed to drag her into the lounge easily. There he looked around carefully, making sure that they were alone before letting go of her. Shiho drew back from him but he hardly noticed because he was back to looking very solemn and serious again. No yelling, no glaring and absolutely no signs of repressed anger. Seeing him like that awoke a strange feeling in Shiho and although she could not describe it, she imagined that it felt similar to the way one would feel if they saw as absurd as a black and white rainbow.

A phone bill that was actually less than expected.

Drinking coffee without knowing that it was cold.

Snow in July.

Or her mother eating a burger with her hands rather than with a knife and fork.

Weird examples or not, something was not right with Yzak.

"What's going on with you?" she asked, frowning. "You're acting weird."

Yzak said nothing and had been staring down so much that Shiho wondered if there was some mysterious spot on the carpet that he just couldn't take his eyes off. She looked down as well and before she knew it Yzak had seized that single moment and moved over to her. By the time she looked up he was standing just a couple of inches away from her, way too close for any respect of private boundaries. Her heart skipping a whole lot faster than it should, Shiho opened her mouth to say something but for once no words came out.

But speaking was not something Yzak seemed to be able to do either, all he did was look at Shiho wordlessly.

Suddenly Shiho felt her cheeks redden and breathing became a little more difficult than usual.

She looked away from him and let her eyes settle somewhere safe such as the pocket of his jacket. Still very much aware of the faster beating of her heart and the blush on her cheeks, Shiho bit her lip and silently reprimanded herself. She was acting like a schoolgirl! All because of something as little as Yzak standing much closer to her than usual.

_I'm being ridiculous,_ Shiho thought to herself and bit her lip.

Only moments after thinking that, she felt his hand reach up and his fingers make sweet contact with her bare arm, sending an unexpected surge of warmth through her body. All thoughts and silent reprimands suddenly disappeared and became forgotten. The only thing she could feel was the sensation of his fingers against her skin, how they caressed her as he slowly moved them down her arm with a touch that left something inside her screaming for more.

He took her left hand with his own and with the gentle caresses of his thumb opened her closed hand. She closed her eyes. Breathing became even more difficult than before.

_Don't stop._

Cold metal. Pain.

Shiho pulled away from Yzak upon feeling those two things. Her eyes wide open and blush gone, she looked down on her hand where she had felt it. The magic of the previous moments were completely gone and Shiho felt how her entire body went rigid upon seeing her hand.

There was a ring on her finger.

A big, diamond ring.

Shiho looked up at Yzak, her eyes full of shock and disbelief.

"What. Is. This?" she asked, emphasising each word of the question and holding her hand up right in front of Yzak's face.

"It's an engagement ring," Yzak replied simply.

"Yes, but what is it doing on my hand?" Shiho questioned, clenching her other hand in a desperate attempt to repress her emotions.

"My mother forced me to buy one today," Yzak told her and stuck his hands in his pocket. With the way he spoke one could have mistaken him for talking about something as insignificant as the weather. "She said that we couldn't be at our engagement party without a ring."

"And you listened to her!" Shiho hollered. "Hello! Were you not with me when we agreed to get out of this marriage or did you just not understand?"

"Of course I did!" Yzak shouted back, automatically raising his voice upon hearing Shiho's less than happy tone. "But what was I supposed to do? Tell her that you are allergic to metal?"

"You should have done something, anything! Because of you I'm stuck with the golf boll of a diamond on my finger!"

Shiho tried to yank the ring off her but the ring was very snug on her finger, explaining why she had felt pain when Yzak had put it on and why she was wincing now when she tried to pull it off. After a while she just gave up and threw her hands in the air in a frustration groan. Instead she started to pace back and forth in the room and Yzak just watched her feeling mild amusement in the midst of all the aggravation. It was like she was trying to compensate not getting the ring off her finger by walking back and forth in the room.

He watched her for a while and tried to think of something to do that would better the situation. But the ring was there and even if they did manage to get it off her it would not do any good. Ezaria knew about the ring which meant that everyone she came in contact with also knew at this point. Shiho showing up anywhere without the ring would raise questions and in the end Yzak would only suffer his mother's wrath for not being able to give his fiancée a ring without managing to somehow screw things up.

"We're losing to them," Shiho said, after a few minutes of pacing. "They have the upper hand and we still haven't managed to inflict any damage. We need to do something big to counter this."

"Like what?"

Just as Shiho was about to answer him, they heard footsteps coming from another part of the house. Both of them stayed complete silent and heard Keiko's voice from the kitchen.

"Has anyone seen my daughter and her fiancée?"

One of the maids answered her shortly and Shiho and Yzak exchanged a look as they heard footsteps from more than one person walking down the hallway. A thought coming to her mind out of no where, Shiho took Yzak's hand and pulled him close to her.

"What are you doing!" he hissed, half panicking because of the close contact.

"Inflicting damage!" Shiho whispered back.

Yzak stared at her, confused.

Three seconds later, when Keiko, Friedrich and Ezaria entered the lounge just in time to see Shiho punching Yzak right across his face.

The latter fell back against the couch, looking as dazed and gone as one would after being punched right in his face by his elite soldier fiancée.

"Yzak!" Ezaria called out, rushing to her son's side.

"Shiho, have you gone mad!" Keiko exclaimed.

It was at that crazy but crucial moment that Shiho chose her course of action. She stared at Yzak, saw how he seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness, heard the panicked shrieks of Ezaria, felt the shocked and horrified looks of her parents. It was at that moment that Shiho sank to her knees and brought her hands up to cover his face.

"You... you ask him!" she sobbed. "He... he cheated on me!"

* * *

One of the reasons of why she hated wearing make up was that it simply got in the way of many things. Fake crying was a good example. Any crying would have sufficed but seeing as she did not cry often and fake crying was what she had done most recently, the latter was a better example. But fake crying made mascara run and in turn made her look like a prom queen from hell. Shiho sighed at the sight of her own reflection and quickly washed all make up off her face. 

But at least it was over and done with.

Damaged had been inflicted.

Looking up at the clock she saw that it was nearly midnight. The engagement party had ended early for both her and Yzak. After the incident in the lounge her parents and Ezaria had agreed that it was best that they made a quick exit before anyone noticed and make a scene out of the whole thing. Shiho had then spent the last half an hour in the back of the limousine with Yzak and Ezaria, who did her best trying to make her and Yzak reconcile.

"It was before the engagement, dear," Ezaria had said to Shiho in her most comforting voice. "You two weren't even friends back then. Even if he still has this girl's phone number it doesn't mean anything and most importantly, _she_ means nothing. Isn't that right, Yzak?"

Had Yzak not been half unconscious and had about two dozen ice packs lying on his face, he probably would have said something in response.

Shiho, however, had continued to play the role of unforgiving and heartbroken fiancée right until she had been dropped off at her apartment. Only after she was inside the apartment, with the front door closed and locked behind her, did she take a deep breath and smiled to herself in relief.

Standing before the bathroom mirror, Shiho took a long look at herself. The make up was washed away, all that remained as a reminder of her mother's makeover was the hairdo and the dress. Not bothering to hide her yawn, Shiho reached for her tooth brush. She was too tired to take a shower now and would do it in the morning instead. After all, she had been forced to get up at eight earlier that morning and then dragged all around PLANT to find a dress that she had worn for less than six hours.

A while she left the bathroom, pulled the high heeled sandals off her feet and proceeded towards her bedroom. Passing the TV positioned before her bed, she turned it on to get rid of the silence in her apartment. Witty and fast dialogue between a spunky girl and her love interest reached Shiho's ears as she pulled down the zipper of her dress. Getting the expensive and fancy dress off her and changing into an oversized T-shirt was undoubtedly the best thing she had done all day. With a bit of pulling and tugging her hair was let down, finally free from the constrains of dozens hair pins.

All that was left now was the ring.

Shiho sighed to herself, looking at her left finger as she sat down on the bed. It was a very beautiful ring, platinum with stepped shoulders and two small heart shaped diamonds on each shoulder. The third diamond was in the center and was without a doubt the largest diamond Shiho had ever seen. Sure it was impractical and there was not really a point in having such a flashy engagement ring other than that it was pretty and expensive.

Lying back against the pillow, Shiho brought her hand out of sight. There was no use thinking about things now, it had been a long day and she was tired. The noises from the TV still went on in the background and she was vaguely aware that the commercials were on now. She lay there for quite a while, watching TV but with only a small portion of her attention. Her mind was somewhere else and though she tried not to, it was occupied with something closer to her own reality.

Some time later her eyelids began to feel heavy and just as she gave into closing them she heard the most aggressive use of her doorbell.

The ringing didn't stop, it went on as if the person outside kept pressing the button.

Shiho sat up with a gasp, startled by the sudden sound.

She immediately jumped up on her feet and ran to the door. Just as she was about to unlock it, she remembered how she earlier that day had regretted opening the door without seeing who it was. With that in mind, Shiho calmed down despite the constant ringing and looked through the peephole.

It was Yzak.

Frowning, Shiho unlocked the door and opened it slowly.

She had only opened the door by a few inches when it was pulled open from the other side and Shiho almost pulled out as well since she was holding onto the door handle. She stumbled and lost her balance, only to be stopped by a pair of strong and firm arms. Looking up, her eyes caught Yzak's.

The moment itself would have been quite romantic, if not for the fact that two seconds later Yzak pushed her back on her feet and forced her to retreat further into her apartment. She looked at him strangely as he closed the door and came to the conclusion that he didn't look quite right. To best honest she thought that he looked like a manic with his bloodshot eyes but she didn't want to be that mean to him at the moment. After all, there was a fresh, red horizontal mark right across his face from when she had punched him, ironically tracing the path of his old scar. In the craziness of it all, Shiho discovered that slashing fiancée's faces while punching was another good use of a pretty, expensive engagement ring with a giant diamond.

"Are you okay?" she asked cautiously.

There was a single moment of silence.

Then Yzak slammed the front door shut so forcefully that it looked like it was about to fall off its hinges and all hell break loose.

"OKAY!" he yelled right in her face. "WHO'S OKAY HERE! ARE YOU OUT YOUR MIND?"

"Calm down, will you?" Shiho urged, feeling like her ears were about to suffer permanent damage.

"CALM DOWN!" Yzak repeated, stepping closer to Shiho and forcing her to step back. "I'M PERFECTLY CALM, YOU'RE THE ONE WHO PUNCHED ME IN THE FACE!"

"It was a part of the plan," Shiho replied, stepping even further from him. "We had to do something drastic to make them reconsider the whole thing!"

"Couldn't you have said that before you slashed up my face!" Yzak hissed, trapping Shiho between him and a table so that she couldn't back away anymore. He placed both hands on the edge of the table, locking her completely. "I just spent the last half an hour with my mother in the car, listening while she repeated over and over again that if I ever made contact with that girl I supposedly had a relationship with she'd make sure I'd live to regret it! Then I had to RUN all the way HERE to find out WHAT THE HELL YOU WERE THINKING!"

Shiho swallowed and tried to convince herself that it was because of Yzak's temper rather than the fact that he was standing so close to her. Her lips felt dry and she said the first thing that came to mind.

"...you could have just called."

Yzak's face turned completely white and for a moment Shiho was unsure whether he wanted to strangle her or would faint on the spot.

"T-that's not the point!" he stuttered, his voice more nervous than angry all of the sudden.

Using the opportunity, Shiho gently pushed him away from her to gain some distance between them.

"It's working... at least a little, right? I can't imagine my parents be as happy about getting you as a son-in-law as they were before."

She smiled slightly but Yzak was still scowling.

"Why did it have to be me who has contact with an old girlfriend?" he muttered. "You're making me seem like a two timer."

"That's exactly the point," Shiho replied, heading back into her bedroom. "And because you forced me to wear a skirt yesterday."

"Hey, where are you going!"

Yzak followed Shiho into the bedroom and eyed her suspiciously as if he was afraid that she was going to grow fangs and eat him. Instead Shiho just faced him with a smile, reached up and touched the red mark on his face carefully with her fingertips. She saw him withhold a wince when she touched him, how typical of him to not want to show that such a small thing as a ring had managed to wound him.

She almost felt guilty for punching him and noted to herself that if he ever needed to be punched again, she would make sure to take off the ring first.

"I have some salve that might help," she said. "Sit down, I'll go and get it."

Yzak blinked in surprise, then strangely enough sat down on the bed without a word. Shiho headed into the bathroom that was connected to her bedroom and turned on the lights. Standing on the tip of her toes, she reached up and looked at the top shelf. She knew that the salve was somewhere, she had used it last time when she had accidentally burned herself using the oven. Granted, that was almost a year ago and she had no idea if the salve had expired or not, but it was the nice thought that counted.

After a good ten minutes of looking and digging through the pile of objects on her shelves, she finally found an old, bent tube. Checking the expiration date and seeing that there were still three months left, she turned off the lights and headed back into the bedroom.

"Here, found it... It's a little old but it says it still should work so..."

Shiho stopped right in the middle of the sentence.

Amidst all the noise from the TV, there was the sound of slow breaths.

Yzak was no longer sitting but lying on the bed, already fast asleep.

A quiet chuckle escaped from Shiho's lips. He must have fallen asleep not too long ago but judging by how deeply he appeared to be sleeping he must have been pretty tired. But then again, he had been forced to buy an engagement ring, been punched by an engagement ring and then run all the way to her apartment.

_I guess he's had a long day too,_ Shiho thought and put down the tube on the bedside table on his side.

Then she walked over to the other side of the bed, turning of the TV and the lights on her way. She sat down on the bed very slowly, careful not to disturb Yzak. He stirred a little due to the weight shifting in the bed but did not wake up. Taking a deep breath Shiho lay down on her side and closed her eyes. Her hand automatically reached for the covers and found it quickly. But when she pulled it, she discovered that it seemed be stuck in something.

Opening her eyes, Shiho saw that somehow Yzak had managed to hog half of the cover in his sleep. The serene look on her face turned to one of annoyance as she closed her eyes and settled with what she had.

"Jerk," she muttered softly and fell asleep.


	6. Day

**Partially Awake  
Chapter 6: Day**

**Author's Note: **No time, no update? I'm so sorry that it took over two months to get this chapter finished, I can only blame work and other real life destractions for that. Anyway, I am very thankful for the reviews I've received and even if it takes time for me to write this story I will definitely not abandon it. I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to write and how the story is going to end, it's just a matter of getting everything down on paper. ) Anyway, I hope this chapter isn't too disappointing and that you'll enjoy reading it.

* * *

Sunday mornings could be either heaven or hell. It could be heaven like Saturday mornings, when you would wake up warm and well rested and could treat yourself to breakfast on the bed. It could also be hell, especially when you woke up freezing and discovering that your fiancée was still hogging the covers.

With her eyes still closed, Shiho yanked at the covers furiously. But just like last night she gave up after a while, since somehow Yzak could manage to keep a death grip on the covers and be asleep at the same time. For a while she seriously considered kicking him out of the bed but seeing as she still felt somewhat guilty for punching him yesterday she decided to let him off the hook. Her feet touched the cold floor as she slid off the bed, causing her to shudder lightly.

_Why is it that mankind can manipulate genes and fly to Jupiter but has still not done something about cold floor in the morning?_ she thought bitterly and stumbled into the bathroom.

There she turned on the lights and immediately squinted her eyes because of the strong light. Closing the door after her, she turned on the shower and waited for the water to become warm. S filling most of the bathroom, Shiho took a look at herself at the fogged mirror. Her hair was still more wavy rather than straight, which wasn't surprising considering the insane amount of hairspray that had been used yesterday. Sighing, Shiho took off her clothes and dumped them carelessly in the laundry basket, which was surprisingly empty for once. It took a moment or two to connect the dots but then she remembered her mother's surprise visit yesterday and all the maids she had brought with her.

Hot water blasted out of the shower head with full force and felt like a massage against her skin as she stood inside the shower stall and just let the water soak her completely. Washing all the hairspray and mouse off her hair gave her an odd sense of peace and calm, as if she was washing off everything that had gone wrong yesterday. By the time she rinsed the shampoo out of her hair things were starting to feel pretty good again.

But fate intervened again when the doorbell rang, interrupting the calm she had attained. Cursing loudly, Shiho turned off the water and stepped out of the shower stall. She pulled her bathrobe off the hanger and wrapped it around her quickly before leaving the bathroom. When she came out she noticed that Yzak was still fast asleep, completely oblivious of what was going on. Sighing again, Shiho bent down and picked up the dress she had worn last night from the floor. On her way through the living room she tossed it over the back of the couch, telling herself to hang it up later.

Reaching the front door, Shiho looked through the peephole and suddenly wished to go back to bed and hide underneath the covers.

On the other side of the door stood not only Keiko, but Ezaria as well.

Drawing back from the door, Shiho covered her mouth with her hand to hide a gasp. Her heart started to beat in a mad rhythm and she felt like she was only moments away from hyperventilating.

Her mother. Yzak's mother. Two mothers outside her door.

At that moment being ripped apart by two starved lions was preferable. Not that Ezaria and Keiko were that far from it.

_Okay, I'll make up an excuse and get them to leave,_ Shiho thought and took a deep breath.

Clearly in denial about how naïve she was to believe that her plan would actually work, she opened the door.

"Mother, Ezaria... how... um, early," Shiho greeted with a much too hesitant voice. She smiled nervously when both Keiko and Ezaria looked at her attire and seemed rather puzzled by it. "I was taking a shower."

"I can see that," Keiko said in a dry tone.

"Honey, are you feeling better?" Ezaria asked in a much more sweet and motherly tone. "I know a lot happened last night with the party and Yzak..."

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Shiho assured with the biggest fake smile she could muster. Maybe that's why they were there, to make her feel better about Yzak's supposed infidelity. If only she could convince them that she was alright they might leave. "I'm perfectly fine, really. Just... gonna finish my shower, that's all."

"Perfect, Ezaria and I will wait here until you're done! We figured that the best way to make use of a good Sunday is to go shopping!"

The thought of hiding underneath the covers never sounded more tempting. Especially when Shiho felt like she had the word "Fear" written all over her face upon hearing her mother's plans for the day. As if yesterday was not enough, her mother wanted to go shopping _again_? But the shopping part was not even the worst part.

"W...wait here?" Shiho stuttered and remembered the still sleeping Yzak in the bedroom. "Why don't you two go downstairs and wait in the limo? I'll be done in a minute and come down as soon as I can."

Keiko raised an eye brow lightly.

"Well, that's just silly," she dismissed. "If you're almost done we'll just wait here and then go downstairs together."

Ignoring Shiho's protest and the fact that Shiho hadn't actually stepped aside, Keiko pushed past her and walked right into the apartment. Ezaria followed, leaving Shiho standing by the door with her mouth half open in shock. As soon as her mind began to function again, she quickly shut the door and hurried after her mother. In the short period of time that Shiho had left her mother out of sight, Keiko had already walked into the living room and to the couch.

It was with pure dread that Shiho watched her mother pick up the dress.

"Goodness!" Keiko exclaimed. "Shiho, after all the trouble I went through trying to find a dress yesterday you just toss it here on the couch like it's a..."

"I'll go and hang it up right away, mother," Shiho cut off and darted in front of her mother had taken the first step towards the bedroom since the closet was located there.

But Keiko just dismissed her attempts to take the dress with a wave of her hand.

"I might as well do it for you. I need to take another look at your closet anyway..."

"Really mother, you don't need to..."

Despite that Shiho actually placed herself in Keiko's way in an attempt to block her, in the end there was nothing she could do about it. Before she knew it she was covering her face with her hand in order to avoid witnessing the scene unfolding before her. In other words, watching Ezaria and Keiko react to finding Yzak sleeping in her bed.

Everything was quiet save for the slow breaths Yzak took in his sleep. When Shiho finally dared to look up she saw the two shocked faces of the two older women. They spotted the sandals Shiho had worn last night lie on the floors as if they had been kicked off in a hurry and remembered the dress just hanging over the back of the couch. There was actually a very logical, not to mention true, explanation to everything but at that point Shiho wondered if the truth would even help.

Taking a deep breath, Shiho's gaze met her mother's.

"We'll wait in the car," Keiko mouthed and put the dress down quickly without the slightest thought of hanging it up.

She and Ezaria quickly hurried out of the bedroom.

"Leave him here and let him sleep in," Ezaria whispered on her way out. "Otherwise he gets a bit cranky."

Before Shiho had the chance to protest, explain the situation or just plain deny things, Ezaria and Keiko were already out of the apartment. They closed the door quietly after themselves, as if not wanting to disturb them. Again, nothing except for Yzak's breathing could be heard. Shiho crossed her arms, doing her best to resist screaming out her frustration and breaking the silence. But then again there were so many other things that were much more fun to break.

_This is so NOT the way things are supposed to happen!_

Marching into the bedroom, Shiho climbed onto the bed.

"Yzak!" she yelled, grabbing hold of his shoulder to wake him up. "Bastard! Get up! Do you have any idea what..."

Her words vanished into thin air as she felt herself being flipped over on her back. Landing on the mattress with a dull thud coupled with the sudden weight of another on top of her, Shiho felt like the whole world suddenly flipped upside down. It took her a moment or two to recover and when she was finally lucid enough to make any sense of what was happening, the first thing she thought that for being such a heavy sleeper Yzak was very alert.

He was pinning her down with his own body, making her unable to move. Her hands were held above her head and fastened with his left hand while the other pushed at her shoulder to prevent her from attempting to rise from the bed. Shiho couldn't do anything but stare at him. The moment she had touched his shoulder he had suddenly awoken and wrestled her down to his advantage, as if he expected anyone to try to wake him to be an enemy. Either that was the result of the military training he had received or this was what Ezaria meant when she said that he became cranky if he wasn't allowed to sleep in.

After staring aimlessly for a few seconds, Yzak blinked and his eyes widened in surprise like he had just seen her for the first time that day.

"Shiho?"

"Wow, it's the morning after and you still remember my name!" Shiho exclaimed in a false surprised tone. "I was that good, huh?"

Yzak looked even more surprised and confused for a while, then it was replaced by a scowl as if he was still too sleepy to try to figure out what she was talking about.

"What am I..." he started.

"...doing here?" Shiho finished for him. "Apparently you fell asleep last night when I went looking for the salve. It took like... what? Three seconds? Guess someone isn't used to staying up that late."

Yzak's eyes narrowed in anger and she could see how his anger rose as he gritted his teeth. Not to mention that his grip on her wrist tightened to the point where it was almost painful. Shiho responded by digging her nails into his hand as hard as she could, but considering she kept her nails short it made little difference and Yzak showed no signs of even feeling anything.

"What the hell is your problem?" he hissed like she was the one with the attitude.

"Do you have any idea what just happened!" Shiho retorted. "Our mothers came in here and saw you asleep here in my bed! They think you slept here!"

His skin tone turning completely white and feeling how his body became rigid, Shiho could at least be happy that Yzak was looking just as devestated as she felt. Still, part of her felt some anger towards him for sleeping through the whole ordeal with their mothers while she had been the one to witness it and not to mention that she would be the one to face them later on. It just wasn't fair, then again her plan failing wasn't exactly fair either.

If there was a God he had a very bad sense of humor.

"Mo... our... why..." Yzak stuttered incoherently, all colors still drained from his face. "...what?"

"Let's put it like this... from the conclusions they came to they're now pretty much sure that we've made up."

Yzak's face turned from white to deep red and he quickly pulled away from Shiho, who sat up again. While she massaged her wrists, Yzak displayed his knowledge of a surprising amount of foul words, even for him.

"Well, I feel the same way," Shiho snorted and got up from the bed. She pulled out some clothes out of her closet and spoke as she went into the bathroom. "They're waiting for me, not sure where they're taking me. The spare keys are in the drawer, wait at least fifteen minutes after I leave before you go... to make sure that they don't see you."

Yzak frowned.

"Is that really necessary?"

"Would you rather leave now and let them catch you?"

There was a short moment of realization and a look of utter horror came across Yzak's face.

"Point taken."

"Remind me that in the future I should just ignore the doorbell and never open the front door again. Our plan blew up in our faces... as again. We need to talk."

Shiho emerged from the bathroom, dressed in a pair of jeans and a grey V-neck sweater. Her long hair was put up in a ponytail, which Yzak noted was rather unusual for her. She reached out her hand and handed Yzak a tissue. After taking it hesitantly, Yzak saw that there were smudgy numbers written on it by lipstick.

"That's my number, call me in a few hours," Shiho said in a voice that told Yzak that he had no other choice. "We need to talk."

Turning around, she picked up her bag and her keys before disappearing out of sight. A few moments later Yzak heard the front door open and being closed. Taking a deep breath, Yzak collapsed on the bed as if he had been drained of all his strength. Glancing at the alarm clock beside the bed, he saw that it was only 10:30 a.m. He had been awake for less than ten minutes and already those ten minutes had felt like hell.

It made him wonder what the rest of the day would be like.

That, and how Sunday mornings could start out so bad.

* * *

_I will not run and scream. I will not run and scream. I will not..._

"Shiho dear, what do you think about this one?"

Opening her eyes, Shiho faced Ezaria who was holding up a long wedding dress before her. It was not that bad, except that the sleeves would make anyone look like they had two bloated, giant marshmellows for arms.

_Please let me run and scream._

"It's... um.." Shiho focused her eyes on the dress in order to avoid looking at Ezaria's hopeful face.

"It's lovely Ezaria, but I think that it will be a little too warm?" Keiko said, appearing out of nowhere with a long, folded veil hanging over her arm. "It's a summer wedding afterall."

"Yes, you're right," Ezaria agreed, looking at the dress with much less enthusiasm. "I saw a wonderful strapless dress back there, I'll go get it!"

Much to Shiho's relief Ezaria immediately disappeared with the horrible dress, with Kevin following her closely. Taking a deep breath, Shiho plopped down at the nearest chair, picking up the first thing she could grab from a stack of magazines. She flipped through the pages and wrinkled her nose when all she saw were images of different bride dresses. Quickly putting the magazine back, she found herself very annoyed at the fact that there was nothing else to read in a bridal shop.

In the corner of her eye she saw her mother look at her somewhat strangely before sitting down in the chair next to her.

"You're in a bad mood today," Keiko pointed out bluntly.

"I don't really get what I am doing here," Shiho answered, crossing her arms. "I'm picking a dress for a wedding to a guy who cheated on me."

She prayed that the sour tone she used would convince her mother of how much of a bad idea this whole thing was. It didn't.

"Oh. for heaven's sake!" Keiko rolled her eyes. "Must you be so sensitive? Yzak didn't actually cheat on you! He just happened to have kept that woman's phone number and..."

"Call her once a month?" Shiho snapped, seemingly very upset but inwards she was surprised at how easy it was to get into this charade. "Mom, how would you react if dad had kept contact with a girlfriend he had before you two got married?"

"Nonsense! Your father would never do such thing! I don't really understand why you are so upset now, you seemed to have forgiven Yzak quite easily from what we saw this morning."

Shiho felt blood rushing to her cheeks and mentally scolded herself for being embarrased about something that hadn't actually happened. Her reaction was noticed by Keiko, who wasted no time before putting on a smug look on her face.

"It wasn't what you think..." Shiho began, looking at her hands.

"Oh shush, we all know it was," Keiko cut off and dismissed the truth with a wave of her hand.

Before Shiho had the change to say anything else, Ezaria reappeared in front of them carrying yet another bridal dress.

"What do you think?" she asked, her face glowing with happiness and enthusiasm. "Isn't it just lovely? Oh, how I would love to be in your shoes again, just one week before the wedding!"

Shiho forced a smile to her lips.

_Yeah... great._ _Just great._

_

* * *

_

It was two hours later, although it felt like much more, that Shiho saw the light of the day as she exited the bridal shop. The warm light of the sun and the slow summer breeze were welcome after having to look at dress after dress and then finally having her measurements taken. There had been a lot of fuss about the dress and in the end it was all unnecessary, because Keiko and Ezaria had ordered a special designed one instead. From the sketches she had been shown Shiho couldn't notice a thing about it that made it different from all the other dresses she had seen that day. Ezaria and Keiko, however, had clearly seen something she hadn't.

"What wonderful lace! And the embroidery will look absolutely marvellous!"

"We couldn't have found a better designer! I can't wait to see the dress when it's finished!"

_Yeah... then why don't you get married instead?_ Shiho thought with a sour look on her face, trailing behind her mother and future mother-in-law as they walked down the street.

In the corner of her eye she saw Kevin the bodyguard looking strangely at her, suspicion burning through his large sunglasses and making Shiho shiver. She had the distinct feeling that he was trying to assess whether this newcomer to the Jule family would jeopardize Ezaria's security or not. All the confidence that came from being a ZAFT elite soldier instantly disappeared and Shiho began to walk with her hands in her pockets and a lowered gaze.

"Ah, here we are!"

Shiho looked up. Her mother had stopped in front of a store with a small sign made of dark wood. She joined her mother's side to look at what sort of store it was. Through the window she could see numerous flowers and greens, arranged in all sorts of ways in different vases and fastened in bouquets. Upon taking a closer look, she noticed the lack of customers.

"Mom, it's Sunday, I think it's closed," she pointed out while trying her best not to show her yawn.

"Silly girl, of course it's closed," Keiko said and rolled her eyes. "I called the store owner and got him to open it just for us."

A short man wearing a white shirt with his sleeves rolled up opened the door for them.

"Mrs Hahnenfuss, Mrs Jule, welcome," he greeted with a smile.

"Good morning Geoffrey, how have you been?" Keiko asked politely.

"Wonderful, ma'am. Please come in!"

Shiho rolled her eyes. Her mother and Ezaria headed inside first, followed closely by Kevin. Shiho was about to enter as well when she heard the familiar ringing of her cell phone. Digging through her purse, she found her cell phone quickly and flipped the cover open.

"Hello?"

"There. I called."

After all she had been through, getting to hear Yzak's cranky voice like receiving a gift from the above.

"Great, you're taking me out for coffee," Shiho decided. She looked at the sign above the store. "I'm at Elanor's Flowers, pick me up here as soon as you can."

She could hear Yzak's frustrated sigh.

"Why can't you just say whatever you have to say on the phone?" he questioned. "I don't want to face my mother, or yours, right now after what they saw this morning. And where the hell is Elanor's Flowers anyway?"

Not unexpectedly Yzak's voice was starting to sound less like it had been godsent. Closing her eyes, Shiho took a deep breath. Inhaling fresh air was supposed to have a soothing effect and at the moment she felt like she needed a strong dose to keep herself from throwing the cell phone on the ground and stomping on it.

"One, you did not just spend two hours trying on every dress in the bridal shop only to have them going for a special designed on that you'll have to try on when it's done!" Shiho hissed. "Second, do you really think I wanted to face them this morning, much less pick out what flowers they want for the wedding? And third... use the goddamn phone book!"

With that she hung up and dropped her phone back into the purse. Taking another deep breath and bracing herself for at least another hour of wedding arrangements, she turned around and headed into the shop. A small bell rung as she opened the door, alerting everyone of her presence. Strangely enough they only cast a quick glance before going back to Geoffrey explaining the artistic process behind every wedding flower arrangement he had been involved in. Relieved, Shiho stuck her hands in her pockets and pretended to admire a bouquet of pink roses while glancing at her watch occasionally.

"And this is what I had planned for the war memorial... it's only a few days left so things are pretty hectic but rest assured that I will work just as much on your daughter's wedding..."

Geoffrey babbled on.

Five minutes passed without anything changing. Then ten minutes and after that fifteen.

Sometime, while Ezaria stood admiring a grand flower arrangement, Keiko approached Shiho.

"Phone call?" she said curiously.

"Yes," Shiho answered briefly.

"From Yzak?"

"Yes."

"Good," Keiko smiled, genuinely pleased. "See, I knew you would work things out. Remember that one mistake does not define a man. Marriage is all about comprimises and learning to love and accept each other. Forgiving and forgetting."

Shiho opened her mouth to answer but could not come up with anything to say if her life depended on it. Her own mother was standing right in front of her and telling that it was okay for her fiancé to cheat on her. Not that Yzak actually had and Shiho could really care less, but hearing those words made her pulse quicken in anger.

"Mother, I..."

Before she could say anything the bell rang again, signalling another person entering the store. Looking over her shoulder, Shiho saw that it was Yzak, who looked slightly awkward as he came in with a somewhat lowered gaze.

"Ah, Yzak!" Ezaria exclaimed, walking over to her son and giving him two airy kisses on the cheek. "You are up now? How is your face? Is it still hurting..."

"Yes mother, I'm fine," Yzak replied affectionate, yet stopped his mother from touching the sore mark on his face. "I just came here to pick up Shiho for some coffee."

He looked straight at her but she turned her eyes away, her cheeks flushed red.

"Well, we can manage things here, right?" Ezaria asked and turned to Keiko who nodded in agreement. "Unless you want to stay here and look around a bit more, Shiho?"

"No, I have full confidence that you will pick something much better than I ever can," Shiho said with a forced smile, delibarately walking past her mother and only lookng at Ezaria as she spoke. Avoiding her mother's watchful eyes, she hooked her arm with Yzak's.

"Very well," Ezaria smiled. "Do you two have any special place you'd like to go to?"

Yzak and Shiho looked at each other, none of them answering. Ezaria clamped her hands together like a cheerful little girl.

"Great! I know this perfect place for you..."

* * *

"Well, at least this didn't turn out so bad..."

"Remind me to thank your mother."

"Mmm."

"Hand me that one will you?"

"Mmm."

"Yzak! I want to try it to!"

Reaching over almost the entire table, Shiho managed to scoop up a small piece of butter cake with royal icing onto her spoon. She fell back onto the chair, bringing the spoon to her mouth and taking a few seconds to taste the cake.

"No... too sweet."

Yzak pulled the plate protectively closer to him, as if he was afraid that Shiho was going to pull the same stunt again despite her disapproval of the cake.

"Stop stealing my cake if you don't like it!" he snapped.

"Yzak, we're supposed taste every cake!" Shiho retorted. "Not just stick to one like it's your baby blanket!"

Glaring at Shiho, Yzak put the plate down.

"Fine."

They both looked over the table, which was full of small plates with different sorts of small cakes. They had been rather worried when Ezaria had suggested that they should go to a certain address but she had sent them to a confectioner's shop. Twenty different sample cakes had been prepared there and were simply waiting to be eaten. As much as Shiho resented the whole situation, she had to admit that this was by far the best thing that had happened that day.

"So your mother thinks it's okay?" Yzak asked, reaching for the banana walnut cake with vanilla butter cream. "My so called infidelity?"

"Perfectly alright to her," Shiho murmured with a slight shrug. "I should have known it wouldn't have worked on her."

Yzak noticed something different about her tone. In those few words she had spoken he detected a certain somberness, one that he was curious about but he did not felt like pushing the issue. Instead he pushed the plate with the banana walnut cake towards her and she scooped up a bite of it. He watched her close her eyes, truly enjoying the flavors of the cake.

"Hm... this one is good."

"So what do we do now?" Yzak questioned. "This plan isn't working either."

Shiho opened her eyes.

"Don't worry, I got another one."

Yzak stared at her blankly as she picked up her cell phone. She dialled a number he didn't recognize and waited eagerly for the other person to pick up so that he could find out who it was. After a few long ringtones, he heard a voice at the other end.

"Hello mother," Shiho greeted with a clearly exaggerated, happy voice. "I just wanted to call and tell you that Yzak and I won't be joining you and father for dinner tonight. ... We got plans. ... Nope, they can't be cancelled! Oh, almost forgot, we won't be able to make it tomorrow either. ... We got plans. Mother, please don't get so upset. I really get what you were saying earlier, about compromising. Well, I think it's time we start to compromise a little more. Yzak and I just need a little more time together. I have to go now, bye bye!"

She hung up the phone quickly and pressed a few more buttons before putting the cell phone back in her bag. Once she was done, she turned to Yzak who was looking at her with an utterly confused look on his face.

"Turn off the sound on your cell," she ordered.

"Why?" Yzak asked suspiciously.

"Any moment my mother is going to start calling me back because she doesn't believe that this discussion is over," Shiho explained. "And since I switched onto silent mode and won't answer her calls, she'll ask your mother to start calling you excessively."

Understanding her point, Yzak turned off his phone immediately.

"Do you even know what you're doing? You're just pissing our parents off by ditching them."

"Well, aren't we such bad influences on each other? Ignoring our parents just for the sake of spending time alone. Imagine the uproar now, what on earth will they do if we get married?"

"Have a fit and kill us both?" Yzak suggested in a dry tone.

"Or decide that we might just be too good together than they want us to." Shiho pulled another cake towards her, looking very smug. "The rest of today and tomorrow is parent free... and the more we convince them we're out on our own and couldn't care less about them, the more they'll hate this arrangement."

Before Yzak knew it she had pushed a spoon with a piece of chocolate cake into his mouth.

He stared at her blankly.

She smiled.

"...piece of cake."


	7. Deviate

**Partially Awake  
Chapter 7: Deviate**

_Notes: I guess it's a good thing that I was too excited about my Christmas presents to sleep, because it gave me the perfect time to write. This chapter was written almost entirely on an old ThinkPad that I borrowed, which is now my new best friend since I can't do anything except using Word on it. It's good, because it keeps me from getting distracted by reading other fics, browsing around the internet or chatting on MSN. Also, I've opened up a Gundam SEED writing forum here at FFN. The link to it can be found through my profile, hope to see you there and that you like this chapter!_

_

* * *

_

"So you guys slept in the same bed?"

Trying his best not to break the coffee cup, Yzak rolled his eyes. Despite enjoying a calm day, drinking the best coffee on Aprilius One, on a sunny day with his best friend, he still could not escape the topic.

"For Christ's sake Dearka, how many times do I have to say it?" he snapped. "Nothing. Happened."

"How big is her bed?"

"Excuse me?"

"Just answer, how big is her bed?"

Yzak frowned.

"Sort of big… queen sized perhaps."

"Well… I guess it's sort of possible then if you both stayed away from each other all night."

Despite what he said, Dearka crossed his arms and his face expression revealed that he was clearly not convinced. Yet he did not say anything, it was as if he was expecting to be told the truth in time. The all knowing look on his face was what made Yzak almost crush his coffee cup. Here he was telling him the complete truth and Dearka did not even believe him.

"You're all perverts," Yzak muttered and sipped at his coffee instead.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"So where's Shiho now?" Dearka asked. "I thought you said that your plan was to ditch your parents."

"We don't actually have to spend time with each other for real," Yzak replied. "As long as we keep making up excuses whenever our parents call we can pretty much do whatever we want."

He had to admit, after coming up with one failing plan after another the current one was actually working. For five days he had avoided his mother and he was pretty sure that Shiho had done the same. One did not have to be a genius to know that their constant dismissal of their parents would have the exact effect on their parents that they wanted.

But still, Dearka did not look convinced.

"What the hell is with you?" Yzak asked.

"Nothing!" Dearka answered defensively. "It's just that I'm wondering how long you and Shiho can keep this up. I mean, this is your mother we're talking about. She never backs out of anything, especially something that she came up with. You and Shiho are just two pawns in her grand scheme."

"We're not pawns!" Yzak snapped. "And stop talking about my mother like she's a villain!"

Dearka raised his hands in defeat.

"Everyone's thinking it, I'm just saying it."

Shooting glares that would kill at his best friend, Yzak finished the rest of his coffee. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was only 4 p.m. Drumming his fingers against the table, he briefly went through his options. The most practical one was to start to deal with all the paper work so that he wouldn't have to do everything at once when the vacation was over. Then there was Dearka, who would probably spend the night at some new club which even Yzak had to admit was a lot more interesting than working.

"What are you going to do later? Going to another club again?"

Dearka's eyes widened and he blinked a few times.

"A club?" he repeated. "Tonight?"

Yzak looked at him with just as much confusion.

"What's wrong with tonight?"

"Tonight is the Junius 7 memorial held outside the White Rose Hall. Or did you forget that along with the fact that your wedding is only five days away?"

Yzak felt his body freeze up upon hearing that voice. Although it was as if he was unable to move, his mind was clearer than ever. He recognized that voice. It was his mother's voice. His angry mother's voice.

"Yzak Jule, stand up and look at me!"

Upon hearing his mother use his full name, Yzak stood up immediately. He turned around quickly, much to his regret when he discovered that not only was his mother there, but she wasn't alone. Hovering over her shoulder was Kevin as usual, looking not so pleased simply because Ezaria wasn't. Then there were both of Shiho's parents, Friedrich looking bored and Keiko looking slightly irritated.

"Mother… um, what are you doing here?" Yzak asked and smiled nervously.

"That's what I should be asking you," Ezaria retorted, crossing her arms. "I thought you said that you and Shiho were going… oh, what was it… horseback riding? At least that's what you told us this morning."

Yzak winced.

The thought of committing suicide with the help of the sugar spoon became rather tempting.

"Well, you see…"

"Thank goodness we ran into Dearka's girlfriend who told us where you really were," Ezaria cut off. "Hello Dearka."

"Nice to see you again, Mrs Jule!"

Dearka waved cheerfully from where he sat.

Yzak's right eye twitched.

Killing Dearka with a sugar spoon sounded a lot better than committing suicide.

"Nevermind all of this," Keiko said suddenly.

She walked up a few steps towards Yzak and for the first time he could see a hint of desperation in her eyes. It seemed out of character for her, even though Yzak had not known her for long.

"Where is Shiho?" she asked. "She's not with you?"

Yzak raised an eyebrow curiously.

"Shiho? No, she's not here…"

"Well then, where is she!" Keiko burst out, panic and desperation growing in her eyes. "She's not at home and she doesn't answer when we call her cell phone! The memorial starts in an hour and we have no idea where she is!"

"Keiko, calm down," Friedrich said, stepping forward and putting his hands on his wife's shoulders. He then turned to look at Yzak. "Would you mind calling her for us? She won't answer when we call, but could you try?"

Yzak looked over his shoulder and at Dearka for some support or even advice, but the latter just shrugged. Facing Friedrich and Keiko again, he felt like he had no other choice but to take out his cell phone. Pushing a few buttons, he found Shiho's number in the phonebook and pressed "Call".

First ringing.

He turned away and pretended to look at a shop on the other side of the street.

Second ringing.

Even though he turned away from everyone he could practically feel how their anxious eyes stared at the back of his head.

Third ringing.

Where was she? Had she not talked to her parents at all and told them the excuse they had agreed on?

Fourth ringing.

Perhaps that was why their parents were there, because she had failed to inform her parents of the "plans" they had and in turn Keiko and Friedrich had turned to Ezaria.

Fifth ringing.

_Damn you, you ruined the plan,_ Yzak thought angrily and his grip on his cell phone tightened.

Sixth ringing.

Still no answer.

Seventh ringing.

_Shiho… what the hell are you doing…?_

"…hello?"

"Shiho?" Yzak heard the relieved sighs coming from behind him. "Where are you?"

"I'm…" she started but she stopped herself right in the middle of the sentence. He heard her take a deep breath before speaking again and her voice was clearly marked with weariness. "What do you want?"

Yzak frowned, slightly taken back.

"The Junius 7 memorial is in an hour," he said calmly. "We have to attend, remember?"

"What are you talking about? We agreed to…"

"Shiho… dear," Yzak said through slightly gritted teeth. "Your mother is very concerned."

Emphasizing almost every word, he hoped that Shiho would get the point. There was nearly a whole minute of silence on the other end of the phone. Just when he thought that she might have hung up he heard her voice again.

"Fine… I'll meet you where the memorial is…"

"I'll pick you up," Yzak offered, surprising both Shiho and himself. "Where are you?"

She was quiet for a while again and during this time Yzak could not get rid of the nagging thought that something wasn't quite right with her. He could hear it from the tone of her voice and those lengthy pauses she made as if she was doubting whether to say anything at all.

"I'm at Newton Bay."

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

With that he hung up and turned to Ezaria, Friedrich and Keiko. They all stared at him in anticipation, even Dearka seemed oddly interested in what he had to say.

"She's at Newton Bay," Yzak informed. "Why don't you go on ahead, I'll pick her up and make sure that we get there in time."

Friedrich and Keiko exchanged a look, then nodded.

"Thank you so much for you help," Friedrich said before turning around and heading for the parking lot.

"Make sure you get there in time," Ezaria whispered to Yzak as she walked by. She stopped and straightened the collar of his white shirt. "I'll see you there."

She gave Yzak a light kiss on the cheek before leaving, seeming much calmer than she had been before. Kevin just walked by silently and Yzak shivered upon knowing that Kevin was looking at him with criticism from behind those big sunglasses. The next one to leave was Dearka, who left money for the coffee on the table before standing up and patting Yzak on the shoulder.

"I don't envy you at all," he chuckled, placed his hands in his pockets and began to walk away.

"Hey, where are you going?" Yzak called after him.

"To the memorial like everyone else. I'm gonna pick up Maggie first though. Speaking of girlfriends…" Dearka looked over his shoulder with a very annoying grin on his lips. "…you better go and pick up yours as well."

"She's not my girlfriend!" Yzak shouted just before Dearka disappeared around the corner.

* * *

When Yzak arrived at Newton Bay, he found Shiho standing on the sidewalk waiting for him. Once he pulled up his car, she sat down in the passenger's seat without a word. She slammed the door shut and sat there looking out the window. Yzak bit his bottom lip. 

"What were you doing here?"

"Nothing," Shiho replied shortly. "I thought you said that we were going to the memorial?"

She did not even look at him. Frowning, Yzak hit the gas pedal and drove off. They spent the rest of the car ride in silence, Yzak focusing on looking at the road while Shiho stared aimlessly out the window.

Countless buildings zoomed by until they finally reached an area with green fields and blooming trees. Countless people were scattered all over the fields, some holding ceremonial paper lamps but most people carried flowers of different sorts. A bit further away was a stage with hundreds of chairs before it. The large building known as the White Rose Hall stood in the distance. The setting sun cast a warm, orange light over the whole scenery.

After finally finding a place to park the car, Yzak got out and Shiho followed him shortly afterwards. They said nothing to each other although Yzak was confused as to what was going on. Usually she wasn't this quiet, something was definitely wrong. He had just about worked up the courage to ask her again when they both caught sight of their parents sitting on one of the first few rows by the stage.

"Ah, finally!" Keiko stood up upon seeing them. "It's alright, you two are just in time."

She ushered Yzak and Shiho into their seats, which were on the row behind her own. Yzak sat down reluctantly. He wanted to talk to Shiho but even though he was sitting right next to her the timing was completely gone. In a matter of a few minutes the seats filled up and soon members of the memorial committee entered the stage.

Yzak hardly listened to the long speeches they made, his mind too full of thoughts to listen. It was no until he heard a strangely familiar piece of music that he actually looked up and paid attention. A girl was up on stage playing the piano. He watched her closely, trying to figure out if he had seen her somewhere before.

It took a while for him to realize it, but it was not the girl who he had encountered before.

It was just the music.

Nichol's music.

Seated two rows away were two people that Yzak recognized right away. One was former councilman Yuri Amarfi and the woman with aqua hair sitting next to him was his wife. Nichol's parents.

No doubt had they allowed the use of his music to be used at this memorial. Not only was it for the victims of the Junius 7 tragedy, but for every life that had been lost in the war. The Amarfis had lost their only child and upon hearing the music Yzak felt the strange twinge in his heart that he had not felt since that day in the locker room when he, Athrun and Dearka had returned without Nichol.

Yzak looked around.

Mrs Amarfi rested her head against her husband's shoulder. An elderly man looked at the stage with a stoic expression but with glistening eyes. A woman was drying her tears with a tissue. Others watched the pianist, no doubt conjuring up their own images in their mind and memories drawn out by the music.

Then there was Shiho, sitting right next to him yet he looked at her last. She was not looking at the pianist, but staring down at her own folded hands. Her expression was one of sadness, just like everyone else at the memorial.

After a moment of hesitation, Yzak slowly reached out his hand and took hers. He felt her shiver upon his touch and he almost drew back his hand. But minutes passed without Shiho pulling away and after a while he laced his fingers with hers. Then he turned his eyes back towards the stage and sometime he thought that he felt Shiho squeezing his hand back.

* * *

"Before we leave, I would just like to make something clear." 

Ezaria turned around right before she was about to enter the limousine. She looked at Yzak and Shiho, who stood next to each other. They had let go of each other's hands as the memorial had ended and now stood in the parking lot saying goodbye to their parents. Friedrich and Keiko had already gone into the limousine and Kevin was by Ezaria's side as usual, holding the car door for her.

"The wedding isn't that far away," Ezaria went on. "There are a lot of things to plan in order for everything to be done in time. The wedding is going to be held at the manor. I'm going back to Martius Two in two days and I need you two to come with me. Understand?"

Yzak nodded dumbly and Shiho gave a weak smile.

"Good," Ezaria smiled. "I'll see you then. Good night."

She hug both Yzak and Shiho at once before disappearing into the limousine. Just as Kevin was about to close the car door, Friedrich suddenly poked his head out, startling nearly everyone.

"Yzak!"

Yzak felt a strange lump of nervousness forming in his throat upon being the only one targeted by Friedrich.

"Martius Two has one of the most excellent golf courses in all of the PLANTS," Friedrich told. "Keiko and I won't be joining you until a few more days but perhaps you and I could take a swing when we arrive, see who's the best?"

"Sounds like an excellent idea, Mr Hahnenfuss," Yzak replied.

He spoke surprisingly good even though felt like he had an actual golf ball stuck in his throat. Friedrich did not seem to notice at all and smiled broadly and gave a thumbs up before getting back into the car. Kevin closed the door after him and then got into the driver's seat. Yzak and Shiho watched the limousine drive away before slowly making their way back to the car.

"Will you give me a ride home?" Shiho asked quietly.

"Yeah."

Yzak stuck his hands in his pockets and kept his eyes focused on the ground as he walked. Shiho did not speak and walked in a similar manner. The ride home was simply a repeat of the earlier one. The only thing different was that three hours had passed since then and that the orange sky was now dark. Yzak avoided looking at Shiho. He remembered the tone of her voice from the phone conversation and her face from the memorial. Even someone as emotionally unaware as Yzak knew that something was wrong.

"Thanks for the ride," Shiho murmured once Yzak pulled up the car in front of the building.

"Is that all you have to say?" Yzak gripped the steering wheel harder. "Or are you just going to pretend that nothing's wrong?"

Already halfway up the car, Shiho looked at Yzak over her shoulder. The lack of surprise on her face already confirmed Yzak's suspicions. But looking at him was all that she did. Not a single word escaped from her mouth, either she did not know what to say or she did not want to say anything. It was so unlike her and how she normally had something to say about everything.

"I know something's wrong," Yzak went on. "You came up with this one whole with our parents and you were so eager to follow it through. Yet you ruined it by not calling them today. What's wrong with you?"

He watched Shiho in her silence. The way she bit her bottom lip and frowned told him exactly how conflicted she felt. For a moment he felt like smiling at the way she was standing. Her being halfway out of the car and not moving either way represented how she was trying to make a decision. He turned his eyes away from her, thinking that it might make her nervous. Focusing on looking forwards instead, he spoke.

"If you don't want to tell me…"

"I do."

Yzak looked up.

"It's just…" Shiho hesitated. "I'd rather not do it here. In the car, on the parking lot. It's just…"

"We could go up to your place," Yzak blurted out and once he realized just what he had said, he bit his tongue. "…if you want."

Shiho got out of the car and shut the door after her. Yzak jumped, startled and afraid that she had taken real offense at what he had said. Unbuckling his seatbelt, Yzak pushed the car door open with force and jumped out as quickly as he could. Once he was out, he looked over the car and saw her heading for the entrance to the apartment building.

"H…hey!" Yzak stammered. "I didn't mean it like that, it's just that I…"

He stopped in the middle of the sentence when Shiho opened the door, but turned around and kept it open. She stood there without saying a word, but standing by the door and waiting for something. A gentle breeze caught her hair and pulled thick strands out of her loose ponytail. His eyes met hers and could not bear to look away.

It took a while before Yzak realized that she was waiting for him.

"Are you coming?" she shouted from where she stood, in her usual tone that was not too soft.

Locking the car quickly, Yzak ran over and joined her by the door. She was the one who broke their eye contact once he stood before her, looking slightly flushed. Yzak just gave her a curious look and felt a little strange to be the one going inside first while a lady was holding up the door. He walked up the steps slowly with Shiho following closely behind. It was only when they reached the door that she stepped before him. There was a nervous fumbling with keys before the door was opened.

As she entered Shiho turned on the lights in the bedroom. Seeing as her apartment was not that big it gave them enough light to see. Shiho took off her shoes somewhere between the hallway and the living room and proceeded into the bedroom without setting the shoes aside. Out of courtesy Yzak removed his shoes as well, but he left them standing by the door. He then followed her, walking slowly as he was not sure of what to do. He found her sitting on the bed, facing down with her hands folded neatly in her lap. She was her own mirror image of what she had looked like at the memorial. Although he hesitated for a while, eventually Yzak joined her and sat down next to her.

"How often do you visit your mother?"

The question seemed to come out of the blue. Yzak looked at Shiho curiously.

"Huh?"

"How often do you visit your mother?" Shiho repeated. "When you're off duty, I mean."

"At least once a week," Yzak answered, thinking briefly about how Ezaria had craved more attention now that she was under "house arrest". "Why?"

Shiho shrugged.

"That morning, the same day as the engagement party…" she started slowly. "I had breakfast with my mother. It was the first time in seven years."

Though he hid his reaction well, Yzak was surprised at her revelation. It did not take a genius to see that Shiho was not particularly close to her parents but seven years was a long time. Before he could say anything, or even try to think of something reasonable to say, Shiho let out a quiet chuckle.

"I was never the perfect child," she continued. "Always off doing something that my mother didn't like, always saying the wrong things to the wrong people and never wanting to do the same thing as my mother."

"I can imagine," Yzak said suddenly.

For some reason his word brought the hint of a smile on her face.

"I can't say that I suffered from it, sometimes I got a kick out of rebelling. It wasn't that bad, we did get along… at least as well as a teenage daughter and a controlling mother could." Shiho sighed. "You're going to think that I'm stupid for getting upset about this."

"I'm not," Yzak assured quickly.

But his protest came a little too quick, because he could see that Shiho did not really believe him. At that point it was his turn to sigh.

"Think that if you want. But I think if you truly felt that you would be ridiculed you would not have bothered to start telling me in the first place."

"…true."

Shiho lay down on the bed, hands folded behind her head while she faced the ceiling. Yzak scooted further onto the bed and turned so that he could get a good look of her face while she spoke. She looked a lot calmer now than she did before.

"My cousin died in Junius 7," she revealed. "We were never really that close but she was older than me and I looked up to her. Sometimes when I wasn't in a mood to rebel I used to wish that I could be more like her. She was intelligent, elegant, everything that my mother would have wanted for a daughter. After Junius 7… she was just gone. I didn't cry that much, but I just felt that she was gone. No more after school ice creams or her helping me whenever I needed an excuse to get away from my mom. She was just… not there anymore."

Yzak lay down as well, propping himself up on one elbow and watching Shiho closely as she spoke.

"I guess she was partially the reason why I enlisted. I had to do something, you know? My mother, of course, was outraged. Although she said that it was a good thing that I wanted to do something, the military was not a woman's world. I was too young, I would not be able to get through the training, let alone survive a battle. It was not a sensible choice, not for me. My father agreed with her but he didn't say much. After all, what would it look like if a respected, former general in ZAFT would forbid his own daughter to enlist?"

"So he just let you go?"

"I got him to sign all the papers but he wasn't exactly pleased. Just as I was leaving my mother told me that if I walked out the door I shouldn't expect to be welcomed back. I guess there was a part of me telling myself that this was just like any other argument. We'd disagree, I'd still do whatever I wanted and in the end my mother would just roll her eyes and things would go on as they were. It's just that this time she was serious. She and dad didn't come to my graduation ceremony. All I received from them was the same printed invitation cards to their annual Christmas party, the kind of invitation they send to everyone they know."

Shiho chuckled again, but her laughter was not sincere and there was very little joy in her eyes.

"I was reduced to someone they invited out of courtesy, up until they decided on the engagement."

She turned her head, looking directly at Yzak. It was only at that point that he became aware of the fact that they were lying about a foot apart and he hoped that his face did not gain too much color at the thought. He faked clearing his throat, hoping to disguise his reaction.

"It's… um…" he started, then a thought occurred to him. "You said that you liked rebelling against your mother. Then why didn't you…"

"…flat out refuse when the engagement was brought up instead of playing this charade?" Shiho finished with a weak smile. "I don't know. I guess I'm a bit of a hypocrite. It was the first time I heard from my parents about something that included me as a person and it was just that one little thing made me happy. Perhaps it was me deciding that it was better to manipulate them into achieving what I want rather than tell the truth and have them disappointed and shun me again."

Hearing all those things made Yzak think more deeply about the whole thing. There was Shiho, someone who had a completely different relationship with her parents but yet wanted the same thing as he did. Not to disappoint their parents and despite all those clear differences, still sought for their approval and pride.

"I guess we want to keep the cake and eat it," Yzak mused. "We don't want to disappoint our parents but we still think that this whole engagement is a crap idea that should have never even be thought of."

"We're selfish people," Shiho said.

"Yup."

"Selfish people who can't decide on one thing."

"Selfish people whose ideas fall apart one by one."

Despite the insulting tone, Shiho let out a short but true laughter at what he had said. She smiled broadly, her body shook and her eyes had a glimmer of life as she laughed. A part of Yzak felt lighter and warmer as well when he saw her reaction.

"You have to admit that it worked a little," she said after a while. "I mean, we got them off our backs for what? Five days? That's sure makes up for all the time we've been forced to spend with them ever since we got back."

"True…" Yzak agreed. "Although having them ambush me today was not exactly the best thing that happened to me this week."

"And what would that be?" Shiho wondered.

Yzak frowned.

"Don't know, just said it to prove my point."

"I see."

It felt like a thick veil of silence had been laid over them, neither spoke out of fear of saying too much. Yzak lay down completely on his back, his hand folded neatly together and resting on his stomach. He stared at a spot on the ceiling and out of boredom he almost started to speculate about what kind of spot it was and what had caused it. After a couple of minutes of silence, Shiho reached for the remote control.

"Wanna watch TV?"

"Sure."

The dark screen of the TV came to life and the first they saw was a middle aged man locking lips with a young woman who could easily have been his daughter.

"Oh great… it's old pervert's dream night," Yzak muttered.

Shiho smiled weakly and held up the remote control for him to take. Yzak took it and started to flip the channels. After going encountering chess games, a documentary about slugs, bad music videos and a debate on agricultural reforms, Yzak found himself back at the same channel as before. The old man and the young woman were now holding hands and running down a crowded street while stopping and looking and looking at various merchandise at the shops.

"Why do they do that?" Shiho questioned. "Hold hands and run? They're not even going anywhere."

"Boredom?" Yzak suggested and was starting to suffer from the same thing.

Shiho yawned.

"Where there's people, there's always going to be bad TV," she murmured to herself.

They both lay there watching TV silently, following the lives of the odd couple who seemed to have no other purpose but to run around the streets of Tokyo in bliss and occasionally make out. It did not take long before Shiho turned to lie on her side with her back against Yzak. Only minutes later Yzak heard her slow, deep breaths and sat up to discover that she was asleep.

Sighing, Yzak scooted off the bed. He turned off the TV and walked quietly across the room to not wake her. He put the remote control back on the nightstand on Shiho's side and was about to turn off the lights as well when his eyes caught sight of her sleeping form. She was sound asleep already, which made him wonder how tired she had been throughout the day and how much sleep she had gotten the past few days with the anniversary of the Junius Seven memorial on her mind.

He instantly reached out, lifting Shiho a little and with his other hand pulling at the covers. It was summer and nights were usually pretty warm, but still… It would be easier for her to kick off the covers in her sleep than to wake up in the middle of the night freezing.

Identifying this new thoughts and feelings as worry, Yzak shook his head.

He practically tip-toed out of the bedroom, through the living room and into the hallway where he carefully put his shoes on. Then, after turning all lights off in the apartment, Yzak quietly left, hoping that in the morning she would feel better.


	8. Drastic

**Partially Awake  
Chapter 8: Drastic**

_Notes: Apologies for taking so long to post this chapter. I started college just a few weeks after Christmas so it's been keeping me somewhat distracted from writing. Here's a slightly longer chapter that I hope will make up for the wait. )_

_

* * *

_

"Maybe we should do something completely different."

Yzak groaned, sensing that Shiho was trying to propose yet another idea. He shifted his bag to his other shoulder and wondered if he should try ignoring her. Then he came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be any use, if she had an idea it would benefit both of them if he would listen to it. After all, it wasn't like they had anything in mind.

"What?" he asked.

Shiho shrugged.

"I don't know… dress in drag? Start proclaiming our love for old socks and yellow plastic ducks?"

Yzak wanted to hit himself with something hard. There was no chance of doing that though, any moment his mother would arrive to pick them up. After all the craziness that defined the past week, Yzak definitely did not feel like giving his mother the impression that he was a masochist after already being labeled as a two-timer.

"Or maybe not," Shiho went on. She was sitting on the steps outside her apartment building, with a bag placed on the step behind her that acted as support for her back. "Well, perhaps we don't need to do that much. There's still time left and at least my parents won't be coming right away. Leaves more time to deal with your mom when she's by herself and more impressionable."

Yzak laughed dryly.

"My mother impressionable?" he said. "You do know that we're engaged because my mother is anything but impressionable and doesn't change her mind easily?"

Resting her head against her drawn up knees, Shiho sighed and gave Yzak a tired look.

"So what do you suggest, we stay engaged and get married in four days?"

Before Yzak could answer that, he spotted a black limousine turning around the corner and heading towards them. Standing up a little straighter, he gestured lightly towards the car so that she would notice as well. Once she did, she jumped up on her feet and brushed the dirt off her clothes quickly. The limousine pulled up on their side of the street and both Ezaria and Kevin came out at the same time.

"Ah, I hope you haven't been waiting too long, there was a bit of a traffic jam," Ezaria apologized.

Yzak and Shiho said little as they were showered with light kisses on their cheeks and did not even have the time to react to Kevin snatching their bags out of their hands. Without as much as a greeting or a word he carried their luggage to the back of the car.

Ezaria suddenly clapped her hands together and giggled, resembling a young schoolgirl despite her age. Her giddiness caused Yzak to feel alarmed, he had seen this kind of behavior before and it was only when Ezaria was extremely happy about something. It usually ended with Yzak vowing to run away and live in an abandoned colony like a hermit and never wanting to face society again.

"Before we leave, I have a surprise for you," Ezaria said secretively.

Yzak swallowed. He could see that Shiho was monitoring his behavior and was most likely puzzled by it. At the moment he did not care, his mind kept flashing back to an incident in eight grade. Coming to the school dance as the only guy in a light green jacket was not exactly fun when everyone else wore black or white, especially when the reason for wearing green was because Ezaria thought that it brought out the blue in his eyes.

"What kind of surprise?" Shiho wondered.

"Oh, it wouldn't be a surprise now if I told you right away," Ezaria laughed. "Come along now, there's not that much time before the shuttle leaves."

Yzak moved towards the car but to his surprise Ezaria took Shiho's hand and lead her into the car first. She then entered herself and started to chat with Shiho, paying no attention to Yzak. Yzak got in shortly afterwards, mildly surprised by his mother's lace of attention towards him. The door was shut by Kevin when he was barely inside and Yzak felt his heart leap seeing as if Kevin had closed it a second earlier then he would have risked losing a foot and a few fingers. The latter went back to the driver's seat and started the car without saying anything and inwardly Yzak wondered if Kevin's lack of words and consideration for people other than Ezaria was because of severe paranoia or just a natural animosity that he had been born with.

"Oh, it's going to be fabulous!" Ezaria exclaimed as Kevin started the car. "You two are going to be so happy to see it!"

What "it" was she did not say but for the rest of the car ride Ezaria pretty much said the same things over and over again, only using slightly different words each time. Yzak only listened half heartedly and instead kept track of where they were going. They had left the blocks usually occupied by ZAFT officers or employees of the Supreme Council and were heading into a slightly upper class area. There were no small houses here, all the buildings were tall, newly built skyscrapers. Yzak had preferred to stay in his old apartment even when he was promoted by he knew that many of those in high positions lived in this neighborhood.

Another piece of the puzzle fell onto its place when Kevin parked the limousine in front a tall white building.

"Ah, here we are!" Ezaria chirped. "Let's go!"

She practically leaped out of the car and skipped all the way to the entrance. Shiho looked at Yzak who just shrugged, having no idea what Ezaria had in mind. They both got out of the car and hesitantly walked over to the entrance. A security guard was standing there, holding up the door for Ezaria.

Life as a security guard at an apartment building had to be boring, it was all about standing there and looking intimidating and stiff. No one would actually attempt to break into an expensive building using the front door. To think of it Kevin would fit perfectly if Ezaria ever fired him.

Speaking of the devil, Kevin was already two steps behind him and Yzak quickened his pace in order to put more distance between them.

"Top floor," Ezaria said as they all squeezed into the elevator.

The ride up felt awfully slow. Yzak and Shiho were exchanging worried looks behind Ezaria's back. The latter was humming cheerfully in a way that fitted a psychotic sociopath more than an enthusiastic mother. When the elevator finally reached the top floor, the doors opened the reveal a short corridor with large windows that let the sunlight in. The corridor only led to one door. The door was large, grand and expensive with a small, metal plate sign. Yzak squinted his eyes, trying to see the name on the sign but the sign was blank.

"Here we are at last," Ezaria said in a sing song voice. "Now, who wants to do the honor?"

Ezaria turned around and took something out of her pockets. Yzak's strangest but first thought was that it was a gun but he found himself sighing in relief when she pulled out a set of keys. Ezaria waved them in front of him.

"Go ahead, Yzak," Shiho urged, taking a step backwards as if intending to use him as a shield in case there was something dangerous behind the door. Yzak took the keys and glared at Shiho once Ezaria had turned away. He walked past his mother and towards the enormous door at the end of the corridor.

His heart pounding a little faster, Yzak scolded himself for feeling nervous about as simply thing as opening a door. It was a door, nothing else. There was absolutely not going to be a monster behind it waiting to eat him or something like that. This was something his mother had cooked up so there was no reason to be afraid. Had it been Dearka, Yzak would have felt completely right in believing that there was a monster behind the door.

Taking a deep breath, Yzak pushed the key into the lock, turned it and opened the door.

For once things were less awful than Yzak expected. Behind the door was no monster or anything dreadful. It was an apartment with large open rooms and wide windows. The ceiling and the walls had been painted white, contrasting greatly with the black and red furniture.

"Isn't this wonderful?" Ezaria said as she entered the apartment. "I had it done in just a week since the wedding isn't that far away. They finished it just yesterday!"

Yzak walked further into the apartment, glancing at the expensive paintings and photographs hanging on the wall. The living room was large enough to fit in Yzak's entire apartment. Two red couches were placed in the middle of it and in front of a fireplace. Even from where Yzak stood he could look out the windows and see that he had a perfect panorama view of half the city. Between the living room and the kitchen, a round staircase led up to a loft.

"Call it my wedding present," Ezaria went on. "I figured that after you two get married you can't stay in those ZAFT sponsored apartments anymore. The master bedroom is up those stairs and there are two more bedrooms down here. You two can decide on what to do with the two empty rooms once you get settled. Make it a guestroom, an office, a nursery… well, whatever you'd like."

Yzak nodded absent mindedly. Ezaria walked over to him and put his hands on his shoulders.

"Well, what do you think?"

Yzak shrugged.

"It's good, thank you, mother."

Still standing behind Yzak was Shiho. Although she kept a straight face, there was something in her eyes that revealed that this was absolutely not good.

* * *

Taking the space shuttle was probably one of the most relaxing things one could do. The seats were large and comfortable and since everyone had to have their own there was never anyone trying to squeeze into a full shuttle. But actually being in space was what Yzak liked most. The pitch black with small stars spread everywhere. It all depending on which route the shuttle took but sometimes it was possible to see the clear, blue oceans of Earth.

Everyone was being completely quiet for once. There was something about looking at space that made people just stare and not want to talk anymore. Ezaria and Kevin were sitting two rows in front of Yzak and he felt oddly grateful that there was a bit of distance between him and them. Shiho was sitting next to him, staring out the window. Yzak looked at her and without peering and looking at her directly he tried to figure out what she was thinking. She had not said much since they had met up with his mother earlier that morning. In fact, she had hardly said anything at all.

"You okay?" he whispered, leaning closer to her as she did.

Shiho jumped in her seat, slightly startled. Their eyes met in the reflection of the glass and Yzak could see how she put on a faint smile before turning her head towards him.

"Yes, why wouldn't I be?"

Yzak struggled with coming up with a valid and truthful answer for that question.

"Have you been to Martius Two before?" he asked instead.

Luckily for him Shiho went along with his question rather than dwell on his previous one.

"Just Martius One," she answered. "What's it like there?"

"The same as Martius One, only smaller and less stressful. My mother chose to build her mansion there because it's close to both Martius and Aprilius One but she had an apartment there as well when she was in the council."

"Ah… I see."

With the conversation coming to an end, Shiho went back to looking out the window. Martius Two soon came into view. Only moments later the silence in the shuttle was interrupted by the announcement from the pilot. People gathered their things and after a smooth landing they rushed to get off the shuttle. Yzak unbuckled his belt and offered his hand to Shiho as she stood up.

She had a look of surprise when she saw it but took his hand and allowed him to help her up.

By the time they had exited the shuttle Ezaria and Kevin were already outside waiting for them on the platform. Kevin was looking more rigid than ever, constantly looking around as he was expecting someone to run out of the crowd and pull out a gun. Yzak sighed and walked over to his mother, who as usual was never bothered by this.

"It's good to be home again!" Ezaria exclaimed happily.

Yzak raised his eyebrow a little. His mother used to spend more time at Aprilius One and her apartment there than anywhere else. Before that they had mostly lived in Martius One, which was where Yzak had lived his first twelve years. It was only after her sentence of house arrest that she had spent more than a week at the mansion in Martius Two. Of course, the fact that it was a mansion that could house over forty people at once could have something to do why she was so eager to come back.

A limousine pulled up next to the platform, similar to the one they had left behind in Aprilius One. Kevin opened the car door before the driver had the time to jump out and exchanged a few words before he turned to Ezaria and nodded. Assuming that it was okay to get into the car, Yzak opened the door to the back seat and held it open for Ezaria and Shiho to get in. Both ladies got into the car and Yzak was about to get in as well when he felt a heavy and large hand grasp his shoulder. A chill running down Yzak's spine, he slowly turned his head and saw Kevin towering over him.

"This is my job, Mr Jule," he informed possessively.

Yzak swallowed and nodded quickly before jumping into the car.

It was a thirty minute car ride to the mansion and the moment Yzak saw them approaching the grounds he felt tremendous relief. Kevin was staring suspiciously again and Yzak promised to himself that as soon as this whole ordeal was over he would speak to his mother. Perhaps Ezaria would convince Kevin that her son was not a security risk.

Hardly a second after the car stopped in front of the main house the car door was pulled open by a man in a dark suit and sunglasses. Men in similar clothes swarmed around the car, carrying out the luggage and helping Ezaria and Shiho out. Yzak stuck his hands in his pockets nervously upon realizing that those men were the security guards stationed around the grounds. As if one Kevin was not enough, here was another hundred.

While they all flocked around Ezaria, which she seemed to appreciate a lot, Yzak turned around and grabbed Shiho's arm. Without an explanation he pulled her away from the crowd and into the house. Nearly stumbling through the doorstep because of the slight resistance from Shiho's side, it took Yzak a good ten minutes to find a place that where there were no security guards or maids. Either it was the return of the mistress of the house or the upcoming wedding but the house seemed to be full of people. Finally Yzak opened a door, went inside with Shiho and closed the door after himself. It was only after he turned on the lights that he discovered that it was a small closet used to store the cleaning appliances used by the maids but at the moment he did not care.

"There's something very wrong with that man," Yzak muttered as he leaned against the wall.

"I think there's something very wrong about you," Shiho retorted. "Why did you pull me in here?"

Yzak glared at her.

"I'm talking about Kevin! He follows my mother around like a fricking… I don't know what! And he looks at me strangely!"

Shiho crossed her arms.

"I see… so there's something strange because he's looking at you and because he follows your mother around. The fact that it's what he's paid to do has nothing to do with it."

"There's something very wrong about him!" Yzak nearly shrieked. "I just know it!"

"Relax, okay? We got bigger things to worry about than you not liking your mother's bodyguard!"

She sighed and moved towards the door but the moment she touched the handle Yzak immediately flew up and stopped her by putting his hand over his.

"Where do you think you're going!" Yzak snapped.

"Considering what happened that time your mother came by my apartment, I really don't think it would look good if she found the two of us together in a closet."

Yzak's face paled and he was out of there in the blink of an eye. Sighing to herself, Shiho followed him out. Once she had closed the door behind her, she took a look at her surroundings for the first time. Even though they were standing in just an ordinary corridor, it was still lavishly decorated. Thin, white curtains lined the windows and various paintings with gold frames hung at the walls. At every second window sill stood a simple, yet somehow expensive looking, vase with fresh summer flowers.

"So… this is where your mother lives…" Shiho started, eyes searching for Yzak.

She found him standing by one of the windows, half leaning against the wall. His eyes were slightly narrowed, as if he was staring intensely at something out the window.

"Yeah," he murmured absent mindedly.

"This house is huge."

"Uh huh."

"Do you come here often?"

"Uh huh."

Shiho sighed again and stuck her hands in her pockets as she walked towards Yzak. He stood there as he had before, not even noticing that she had moved next to him. Shiho slapped his shoulder lightly.

"You're not listening to me, what's with you?"

Before Yzak had the chance to answer or even react, Shiho turned her head and looked out the window. Standing there, she had a perfect view of the driveway, where Ezaria and Kevin were still standing and talking to the other bodyguards. Resisting a third sigh in less than five minutes, Shiho just turned away from the window and snuck her arm around Yzak's, dragging him with her as she walked away.

"Hey, what are you doing!" Yzak shrieked, struggling to get back to the window.

"You are going to give me a tour," Shiho answered calmly, continuing to pull Yzak with her as she went down the stairs.

"You give yourself a freaking tour," Yzak muttered angrily. "Why the hell do you want one anyway?"

"I don't, it's just that giving a tour is the polite thing to do when one arrives at your house for the first time." Shiho smiled and stopped right in the middle of the stairs as she turned to face Yzak. "Frankly, you're just being overly paranoid about the whole thing. Paranoid, border lining the point of being a little boy who is jealous of anyone his mommy talks to. So, you are going to tell me what a lovely garden and park this house has and most importantly you are going to leave your mother and Kevin alone."

Yzak stared at her with a half open mouth, clearly shocked at what she had said. Shiho's only response was to smile wider and in time Yzak's shocked expression was replaced by one of anger. He took her by her hand, making sure to grip it very hard, and trotted down the stairs without a word. Despite feeling a twinge of pain in her hand, Shiho still smiled.

"See, I knew you could be a good boy."

"Shut up," Yzak muttered, stepping onto the ground floor and leading Shiho through what seemed like a labyrinth of corridors.

After a while they reached a set of glass doors and as Yzak pushed them open they were back outside again, only this time on the other side of the house. Before them was a large outdoor patio with various chairs and tables spread all over. As they stepped outside, Shiho could see a swimming pool to their left and to her right was a small fountain surrounded by flowers. But the patio was hardly eye-catching compared to the view.

The further outside they walked, the more Shiho could see a large view over wide green fields and the glittering lake in the distance. From where they stood they had an almost complete view of all of the grounds that belonged to the manor. The patio and the house itself was built on top of a small hill and down below was an even larger garden filled with flowers, exotic trees, fountains and in the middle of it all, a gazebo.

"Wow," Shiho breathed, finding it difficult to take it all in.

Despite her own upbringing and her parents' wealth, she had never seen anything so grand as Ezaria's manor and its grounds.

"Yeah, well there you have it," Yzak muttered, letting go of her hand. "Are we done now?"

"No way we're heading back inside now," Shiho said, still taken by the view. "Can we get down to the garden from here?"

"Why would you want to go there?" Yzak frowned.

"Because I want to… and because I want to make sure you won't run to the nearest window to spy on your mother."

Not knowing whether to yell at her or just roll his eyes, Yzak oddly settled for his third choice which was to lead her down a set of stairs leading from the patio to the grounds below. The two of them walked quietly into the garden, Shiho admiring it and Yzak dragging his feet as he followed her.

"It looks amazing," Shiho whispered after some time.

"It's just a bunch of plants and statues," Yzak retorted.

Shiho gave him an annoyed look, but returned quickly to her admiration of the garden. They walked around in silence, stopping occasionally when Shiho wanted to look at something closer. After a while they arrived at the center of the garden and stepped into the gazebo.

"Stopping for rest already?" Yzak sneered as he watched Shiho sit down on a bench.

"I figured it was for your sake…" Shiho replied. "Being a cranky old man with grey hair and all."

Yzak made a mental note to demote Shiho for that comment.

"It's silver," he muttered with repressed anger and sat down next to her.

"Same thing, different name."

"Like you and soon-to-be-fired-from-ZAFT?"

"Haha, very funny."

"Ah, there you are!"

Both Yzak and Shiho turned their heads at the exact same time and saw Ezaria coming towards them from the main house, still with Kevin by her side. Yzak's eyes narrowed and he felt his body tense as if something dangerous was approaching him. Through those thick sunglasses, he knew that Kevin was staring at him and he retaliated with a glare.

Then, suddenly he felt the warmth of Shiho's hand on his. The scowl on his face disappeared and he turned to look at her instead.

Shiho neither looked at him nor said anything. She just sat there until Ezaria came into the garden, by then she rose to greet her and left Yzak sitting on the bench.

"I've been looking all over for you," Ezaria said, although in reality she probably meant that she had dispatched servants here and there to look for them. "Dinner will be served soon, I bet you two are absolutely famished. Let's go back to the house."

The last sentence being a decision not to be question, she turned around and started to walk back the same way she had come from. Shiho looked at Yzak over her shoulder, made a quick gesture for him to get up and then followed.

Yzak watched her go. There was a slight tingling sensation on his hand where she had put hers. Dismissing it all, he got up and left the gazebo.

* * *

"I've spoken to the caterer, he'll be here tomorrow making a sample menu and we'll just go over everything and make sure everything is set. At two o'clock we'll have another fitting for the dress and then…"

Yzak slowly stirred his soup with the spoon, the sound of his mother's voice fading away to be replaced with an odd fascination with the soup. Spinach soup. It had been his favorite soup when he was little, for some reason. Nowadays he liked to blame it on the belief that his taste buds had not been completely developed back then.

"The florist will be here the day after tomorrow…"

More wedding talk.

Yzak looked up and watched his mother. She had gone on and on about the wedding ever since they had gotten back to the house, speaking of arrangements that Yzak had never heard of and things that needed to be done. Ezaria had told Shiho to sit next to her so that they could discuss everything thoroughly but as far as Yzak could tell Shiho was hardly listening either. The only reason why Ezaria did not notice it was because Shiho was good at nodding occasionally at the exact right time.

"…of course, your parents will arrive tomorrow as well…"

How long was this going to go on?

They were only a few days away from the wedding, something had to be done soon. Yzak's mind flashed back to earlier that morning and remembered how it seemed like even Shiho had run out of ideas.

"…oh, by the way…"

He looked up at her again.

She was sitting there, eating and pretending to listen.

What was going on in her head? What was she really thinking of?

"I'm not that conservative but there are a few… things that I would like to keep right. Therefore, I would appreciate that while under my roof, that you two completely restrain yourselves from having sex until after the wedding."

Ezaria wiped the corners of her mouth gently with her napkin. As she put it down, she definitely did not notice how both Yzak and Shiho were sitting completely still as if frozen by time. She did not notice how the color had drained from their faces or how the tension in the room was so thick that it would be a challenge even for a chainsaw. What she did notice, however, was that they had stopped eating.

"Oh, are you done with the appetizers?" she asked but did not expect an answer. "Why didn't you say so, I'll have the maids bring in the main course."

* * *

When he checked his email, there was a new message from Dearka waiting there.

_Hey Yzak,  
How is it going?  
My shuttle arrives at Martius Two at 12:45 tomorrow.  
/Dearka  
PS: Are you and Shiho still sharing beds?_

Yzak wrote "_Go to hell."_ as a reply, which was really his own personal way of saying "_Okay, I'll be there."._

Once the computer was off, the sound of its fan gone, it felt odd to be alone with the silence. Despite being in what was supposed to be his bedroom, Yzak did not feel quite at home. He had spent little time in the manor the past few years and this bedroom, like the rest of the house, was more of a reflection of his mother's tastes and likes than his.

Not bothering to hide his yawn, Yzak turned off the main lights in the room. It had been a long day and he deserved to get a good night's rest. Slipping underneath the covers was pure bliss but just as Yzak was about to turn off the last lamp there was an abrupt knocking on the door. Letting out a mix of a groan and sigh, Yzak dragged himself out of bed and to the door. As he opened it, he was fully prepared to yell at whoever it was who dared to disturb him.

Had Shiho not slipped through the door so quickly and almost knocked him away on her way in, he just might have been able to do that. She came in without saying anything, still dressed in her normal clothes.

"What are you doing here?" Yzak hissed, closing the door after her. "It's late!"

Shiho did not answer, instead she just crossed her arms and looked around nervously. Despite the interruption, Yzak felt oddly curious about her behavior rather than feeling annoyed.

"What's wrong?"

Shiho's eyes, widened, stopped looking around the room and turned to him directly instead.

"What's wrong?" she repeated, like he had committed some terrible offence by not knowing what she was thinking about. "This whole thing, that's what's wrong!"

"And you're starting to sound like a broken record," Yzak replied, crossing his arms as well. "I already know this."

"Well, apparently we're the only ones who do!" Shiho snapped, raising her voice as she spoke. "Were you not there with me at dinner, listening to your mother going on and on and on about this wedding? The caterer, the florist… everything! And then…"

She buried her face in her hands like she was afraid of even thinking about what Ezaria had said at dinner. Frankly, with the memory of it all coming to mind, so was Yzak.

"Well, she…" he started but could not come up with a good way to finish the sentence. But if he had to be honest, he did not think that there was any explanation in the world that could make things more awkward than they already were.

"This has to stop," Shiho said decisively. "We can't let this go on anymore, I'd rather…"

"Rather what?" Yzak asked. "It's not like any of your plans have worked before. I'll let you know that my face still hurts from being punched!"

"You wouldn't have been if you hadn't forced this thing on me in the first place!" Shiho retorted, bringing her left hand up and showing him the engagement ring, which was still on her finger after all this time. "God, you're so easily manipulated by your mother! Speaking of which, what was with the 'yes, mother', 'thank you, mother' deal this morning! She got us an apartment… to live in!"

"It could have been a lot worse!" Yzak shouted back, feeling the tints of anger upon the mention of his mother.

"She mentioned a NURSERY! That means she expects children… from us! As in you and me having kids together!"

"That's what a mother would expect when her son gets married!"

"Yzak! We're not getting married!"

"I know that!"

Shiho stepped back upon hearing Yzak screaming those words. The conversation had started with her being the one who was upset, yet Yzak could feel his cheeks growing warm and how his heart pounded faster. The beating of his heart was everything that he could hear, because Shiho did not say anything. For a while she stood there with such an infuriating look that matched Yzak's own very well. Then she shook her head and threw up her arms as if admitting defeat.

"Whatever, just forget about it."

Turning away quickly, Shiho ran to the door as quickly as she had come in. Within the blink of an eye the door was open and she was out of sight. Yzak did not know whether to feel relieved that he was finally alone or to feel anger and punch a wall for a reason that he could not identify.

Luckily, he never had to make a choice. Hardly three seconds after Shiho had left, she came back inside again, rushing in and turning around to quickly close the door after her. A slower person would think that she had not been gone, if not for the sudden terrified expression on her face and the heavy breathing like she had just seen something awful.

"What are you doing?" Yzak questioned, closing the distance between them.

When Shiho just pointed at the door with a shaking finger, Yzak rolled his eyes.

"What the hell is it now…" he muttered and opened the door.

He stepped outside and noticed nothing unusual. That was, until he happened to turn to his left and came face to face with the broad, six feet six tall man who was his current object of dislike. Yzak jumped back slightly and nearly fell back into the door, while Kevin did not even need to adjust his sunglasses.

"Is everything alright, Mr Jule?" he asked in the same dull, booming voice.

"What are you doing outside my room!" Yzak questioned aggressively.

"My job is to ensure your mother's safety," Kevin replied stoically.

"You are aware of the fact that my mother's room is on the other side of the house?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you're standing here?"

"Yes, sir."

Yzak opened his mouth to blurt out some sort of witty insult or order but at that moment something occurred to him. The little obscure clues he had were enough for him to realize what was going on. Rather than to start a verbal fight with Kevin, Yzak bit his tongue and stepped back into the room. He slammed the door shut without a word, causing Shiho to jump from where she stood, having hidden herself behind the door to not be seen by Kevin.

The two of them stared at each other for a while, before Yzak broke the silence.

"Did he see you before when you went out?" he asked quietly.

"I didn't see him when I came here," Shiho answered. "He must have come afterwards but I'm pretty sure that I managed to come back inside before he saw me. Why is he standing outside your door?"

Yzak took a deep breath.

"I think my mother told Kevin to stand outside my room to make sure we don't sleep with each other until the wedding."

There was silence. Then only a whisper.

"You've got to be kidding me…"

"I wish."

Shiho ran her hands through her hair.

"No way…"

"It makes sense," Yzak explained. "Kevin doesn't give a crap about me, the only reason why he'd be standing guard outside my door is if my mother told him."

Still looking like she was in complete shock, Shiho walked away from the door and over to Yzak's desk, where she remained standing only because she was able to support herself by placing her hands on her table. Yzak took a few steps to follow her.

"What a bi…" Shiho started but upon using those words she noticed that Yzak was glaring at her rather intensely. She stopped in the middle of the sentence and sighed. "Oh, come on… if I would pick someone to sleep with it would definitely not be you."

For some reason, the world became deep red for a few seconds before returning to normal. Yzak frowned.

"Why not?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes," he said abruptly.

Shiho blinked, slightly taken back by his question and change in demeanor. Deep inside Yzak was surprised as well, but he felt like he had to make her answer that question. He stared directly into her eyes from where he was standing and she stared back like it was some sort of competition.

He wasn't sure how long they stood there, unwilling to be the one to give in. But in the end it was Shiho who looked away and broke off their eye contact. She pretended to casually admire a painting hanging on the wall as she answered him.

"I don't sleep with anyone, so it wouldn't be you or anyone else for that matter. That's why."

"I see."

Yzak watched her stand there nervously and wait for him to say something else. But being to busy pondering on the meaning of her answer, he did not even notice it. A good five minutes passed in silence and then Shiho looked towards the door.

"I should go back to my room now."

"You have noticed that Kevin takes his job seriously, right? Do you really think he's going to leave this entire corridor unguarded even for a second?"

Shiho opened her mouth but in the end she did not say anything. For a while she just stood there, looking like she was thinking deeply about what to do. Then she started to pace back and forth. Yzak could not help but to feel slightly amused. It was not like pacing would help her get back to her room without being noticed.

"What are we going to do…" she murmured, more to herself than to Yzak.

"You'll just have to stay here then."

Shiho's eyes widened.

"Wh…what?"

Yzak shrugged. "You'll just have to stay here tonight. If you go out now then my mother's going to find out and you can expect a much worse speech in the morning over breakfast." He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down. "It's not like we'd do anything."

"Right."

"Right."

There was nothing else to do, the hallway was being watched by Kevin and his men and despite her ZAFT training Yzak doubted that Shiho could get through without being noticed. He lay down on the bed, hands casually tucked underneath the pillow as he looked up at the ceiling. It did not take long until his eyes drifted to Shiho, who was still standing by the bed and looking at it hesitantly.

"So... you're going to play golf with dad tomorrow?" she murmured with flushed cheeks, making it incredibly obvious that she was trying to change the subject.

"Yeah."

She responded with a small nod, then carefully lifted the covers and slid in between them. Yzak scooted to make room for her but despite that they were lying just a few inches apart. There was simply very little place for him to scoot. Shiho reached out her arm and turned off the one remaining lamp, leaving the room entirely dark. Yzak closed his eyes and almost shuddered at the thought of feeling the warmth of her body if she was just a little closer.

"Yzak, have you done it before...?"

He opened his eyes wide and swallowed, not expecting such a question. It was so sudden, even for her. His first instinct was to simply brush her off with a quick answer, but then again she had been rather open to him before. The nice but small part of him told him that he should at least return the favor.

"I have... a few times. Just one girl though. We were stationed on the same ship for a while. I hated everything about her, but she was beautiful. Couldn't stand her at all except for in bed... guess it was a love hate thing, or a lust hate thing. Anyway, she got transferred so it ended pretty quickly."

Shiho was quiet for a while. When she finally spoke, it was with a less than happy tone.

"That was a lovely story but I was actually asking if you had played golf before."

If one could pick out the most stupid moment of one's life, Yzak was pretty sure that he would pick this one.

"Oh."

Shiho shifted her position, lying on her side with her back facing him. Yzak nearly winced when he saw this, even he knew when he had said absolutely the wrong thing. For a moment he thought that it would have been better if she just snapped or yelled at him but all he was left with now was watching the faint silhouette of her back in the darkness. He wanted to say something but all words were stuck in a disarray in his mind.

Through the mattress he felt her shift slightly again, this time moving as far away from him as she could. She moved no more than a few inches but judging from the space between them Yzak knew that she was lying right next to the edge. At first he did not react at all, but as moments passed something build up inside of him and the distance between them seemed too great, too much.

Before he knew it, he had slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her towards him.

Lying so close with her back pressed against his chest and his arm still around her, Yzak closed his eyes and in his mind asked himself what the hell he was doing. He could feel how tense her body had suddenly become and heard that for a few seconds she had stopped breathing. She was clearly uncomfortable and he knew that he should let go of her but for some reason his body refused to cooperate. It felt good… somehow, lying next to her and keeping her close.

"You'll wake me if you fall off the bed in the middle of the night," he muttered, trying to explain things to her and himself.

Shiho didn't say anything but after a while Yzak felt how she slowly relaxed until the point where she was starting to fall asleep. Yzak closed his eyes and half buried his face in her hair.

Just before he fell asleep, it occurred to him how nice and warm it felt to lie next to her.


	9. Doubt

**Partially Awake  
Chapter 9: Doubt**

_Notes: Yay for writing this instead of essays! At least I'm still being somewhat productive. :P Hope you'll enjoy this chapter!_

* * *

Yzak swore that he was having some sort of flashback. Or rather, he was living in a flashback. Either that or it was a really strong sense of déja vú. It was a sunny day, he was enjoying a cup of coffee and desperately trying to not kill Dearka. 

The latter had occurred so frequently since the early days of their friendship that Yzak should have become used to it by now. Of course, there were exceptions such as when being on opposite sides in a war when he absolutely refused to want to kill him. But Yzak liked to think that whenever he felt like he wanted to kill Dearka, it was a just sign that everything about their friendship was alright and normal.

Like today, when Dearka was sitting right across him and once again looking at Yzak with disbelief.

"For God's sake, we still didn't do anything!" Yzak shouted, slamming down the coffee cup on the table with force and making everything else on the table shake.

A waiter who was standing close by would have said something, but he turned away after deciding that this was not a good day to have any damage done to his ears. Meanwhile Dearka was still looking at Yzak with disbelief, which only reinforced the whole déja vú thing since it made Yzak want to slam something at the table again and protest loudly. Or perhaps scream a little.

"You're seriously telling me that this is the second time you two ended up in the same bed just out of coincidence?" Dearka said. "Either you're lying or you're telling the truth and really stupid."

"Why does everyone think that we even have that kind of relationship!" Yzak went on. "She's a subordinate for crying out loud, it's against the protocols."

Dearka raised an eyebrow.

"Dude, you're engaged to her," he pointed. "I don't think the protocol thing applies anymore."

"She was my subordinate before becoming my fiancée," Yzak muttered sourly. "Does everyone think that just because we're engaged we're going to jump into bed just like that?"

Dearka did not answer and took a sip of his coffee, but he had the distinct look that said: "Well, yes."

At that moment the only thing Yzak wanted to slam against the table was his own head.

"It's not like that!" he cried to his defence. "It's just... not!"

The memory of the previous night and the moments before he had fallen asleep came to mind, but he pushed those away quickly and forced himself to think of something else. After all, it was not like they had any other choice. Because Shiho had hidden in his room, Yzak had left the room first in the morning and thus Kevin had followed him, leaving Shiho to exit the room freely and get back to her own. Everything had gone smoothly, neither Ezaria nor Kevin showed any signs of knowing anything at breakfast.

"Well, whatever you say," Dearka said with a shrug, using his fingers to spin around a tablespoon that was lying on the table. "So you two are still trying to get out of this whole thing?"

_Trying being the keyword,_ Yzak thought to himself.

"Yep."

"Well, you seem to be doing a great job."

"Don't you have someone else to bug? When's Maggie coming anyway?"

The teaspoon's spinning came to end quickly, causing Yzak to look up. What he saw was somewhat unexpected. Dearka was pretending to stare at a spot on the table but his expression was different, unusual. It was only at second glance that Yzak realized that Dearka actually looked sad.

"We kind of broke up," Dearka told.

"I see," Yzak replied.

Nothing more needed to be said. Sure, they were best friends but if there was anything they were good at it was avoiding direct talk about private emotions. Yet Yzak could not help but to wonder and in his mind he was already speculating about the reason for the break up.

"It was because of her, wasn't it?"

Dearka looked at Yzak, a little surprised that the latter pushed the subject further.

"You don't have to say anything, but you know just as well as I do that none of your relationships have worked out is because you keep trying to make them replace her."

Dearka did not answer and just looked away instead. Countless seconds passed while Yzak watched him in hopes of an answer but after a while he just gave up and finished his coffee.

* * *

Suddenly the garden wasn't so peaceful anymore. 

There were people all over the place, all of them working like bee drones to finish their tasks. There were carriers with everything from flower baskets to white linen, not really sure of were they were supposed to go. A great white tent was being raised at the end of the garden. Statues were being moved to make place for a long line of chairs, a line that would be one of many. A thin carpet was being rolled out from the entrance of the garden to the gazebo.

Shiho stood in the middle of all this, watching quietly and feeling very detached from her surroundings. Everywhere she looked there were people running around, each busy with their tasks and struggling to get everything done until the wedding. Her wedding. It felt unreal somehow, to see all the preparations for something that wasn't even supposed to happen.

"Miss Hahnenfuss!"

Turning her head upon being called, Shiho spotted a familiar man heading towards her. It took a moment for her to realize who he was, but when she saw him wearing a pair of gardener's gloves, she recognized him as Geoffrey the florist.

"Mr Geoffrey," Shiho greeted. "How nice to see you again."

"Well, it's a joyous occasion, miss," Geoffrey answered. "Or should I say Mrs Jule? I bet it is ten times more joyous for you and Mr Jule than anyone else though."

He gave her a toothy smile and Shiho surprised herself by forcing a smile automatically in response. Since when did it become so easy to pretend?

"I've seen plenty of weddings in my time," Geoffrey went on. "None as grand as yours will be, of course, but I recognize that look on your face. Seen it on plenty of brides. You're feeling a little lost, aren't you? This wedding is so huge and you start to lose track of everything that's going on. But don't worry, it all works out in the end, you'll see."

The smile on Shiho's lips felt suddenly felt much less forced. There was something in Geoffrey's words that brought reassurance, even though he had no idea what was really going through Shiho's mind.

"Thank you," she said sincerely.

The old man's smile widened, and then suddenly he jumped slightly and dug into his pockets as if he had just remembered something.

"Oh, before I forget… I wanted to ask you…"

"Shiho!"

Before Shiho had the time to react Ezaria was already by her side, as if she had appeared by magic.

"Mrs Jule," Geoffrey greeted politely.

"How lovely that you were able to come so early," Ezaria chirped and hooked Shiho's arm in a way that made Shiho feel very uncomfortable. "Now, what were you asking my soon to be daughter-in-law?"

Aside from her discomfort being increased by Ezaria referring to her as her daughter-in-law, Shiho couldn't help but to frown a little at Ezaria diving right into what could have become a personal conversation. Even Geoffrey seemed slightly taken back.

"Most of the flowers won't arrive until tomorrow but I was wondering if Miss Hahnenfuss could give me her opinion on the current design for the arrangements..."

"Oh, I'll take care of that later," Ezaria answered before Shiho could. "We have other things to attend to right now!"

Before Shiho could say anything else to Geoffrey, she was pulled away by Ezaria who started to lead her back into the house. Shiho carefully tried to pull her arm out of Ezaria's grip but the latter took no notice of it, much less Shiho's discomfort at being dragged away without having any say in it. The two of them entered the main house and Ezaria lead her towards the parlor, occasionally stopping and giving an order or two to the servants.

Shiho fought the urge to slam her head against the wall as one of the maid told Ezaria that the hotel had called and confirmed the reservations for the honeymoon suite. Seeing as she wasn't coming up with any plans or ideas to get them out of this, she might as well be using her head for something else. Maybe if she was lucky she would get a concussion and the wedding would be put off for a few days.

Then again, knowing her own mother and Ezaria, they would probably have her and Yzak marry at the hospital while she would be too disoriented to protest.

"Shiho? Come along, dear!"

Shuddering at how affectionately Ezaria called her name, Shiho bit her tongue and followed Ezaria into the parlor. What she saw in there was far worse than she could imagine.

"Oh God."

The wedding dress. Beaded, embroided, richly white wedding dress. It was finished.

"Oh, I knew you would love it!" Ezaria exclaimed happily, thinking that the shock on Shiho's face was a positive sign. "This is Clara, she'll be making the final adjustments to the dress."

Shiho smiled vaguely at the seamstress, who picked up the dress and held it in front of Shiho. Clearly at loss at what to do, Shiho just stood there and stared at the dress blankly.

"Well, go try it on," Ezaria urged, placing the dress in Shiho's hand. "You can change over there."

She pushed Shiho in the direction of a divider that had been set up in the corner of the room. The dress feeling heavy in her hands, Shiho swallowed and headed over there. Once behind the divider and out of Ezaria's sight, she could not help but to take a deep breath and mentally reminding herself to not panic. But the dress itself was a reminder of how close the wedding was. It was the day after tomorrow and if she and Yzak couldn't get out of it who knew what would happen?

Reluctantly, she unbuttoned her blouse and took off the rest of her clothes. First she took on the top of the dress and as she pulled up the zipper she noticed that it was rather loose on her. Next was the skirt, which luckily fit her perfectly.

_Luckily,_ Shiho thought and rolled her eyes.

"Shiho, are you done yet?" Ezaria called from the other side.

Resisting the urge to say "No", Shiho took another deep breath and stepped out from behind the divider. The skirt felt heavy on her as she walked and made swishing noises for each step she took. But Ezaria noticed none of that and squealed in joy upon seeing Shiho wear the dress.

"You look so beautiful!" Ezaria stepped closer and her eyes drifted to the loose top, or to be exact, where it was loose. "…although you are lacking a bit in this department."

It took every ounce of will power Shiho had left to not make a face at that comment.

"No worries, Clara will fix it!"

The seamstress stepped forward, bearing a stool and a sewing box. She set down the stool in front of Shiho and with Ezaria's help Shiho managed to step up on it without losing her balance due to the heavy skirt.

"Hold out your arms please, miss Hahnenfuss," the seamstress asked, but it sounded more like an order.

Holding both arms out, Shiho stood there and tried to think happy thoughts as the seamstress started to work on the top. She found it difficult to think about anything happy though, most of the time she felt frustration regarding the situation and how she hadn't been able to get out of it. Other times it was pure irritation, because the seamstress kept pricking her with the needle and Ezaria was watching them both with great interest.

Looking at her, Shiho realized that it was Ezaria who was the true force behind this wedding. At first she had thought that it was the combined efforts of her parents and Ezaria but the past few days had confirmed that it was Ezaria who wanted this match most out of everyone. Her own parents could be argued with and rebelled against even if Shiho preferred not to do those things. But Ezaria was in a league of her own and Yzak would never turn directly against his mother's wishes.

Her reflections were suddenly disrupted by the sudden feeling of pain in her side.

"Jesus Christ…!" Shiho whispered, wincing as she slowly pulled out a needle and tossed it aside.

But rather than looking remorseful or even showing the slightest sign of feeling sorry for poking a needle through her skin, the seamstress just looked at Shiho with disapproval. She crossed her arms and spoke in a tone that reminded Shiho a lot about her mother.

"Miss Hahnenfuss, please don't move around that much!"

_Even a voodoo doll would be fed up with you by now, _Shiho thought angrily and lifted up the heavy skirt to stand up on the stool again. But she bit her tongue and took a deep breath, nothing good would come out of arguing anyway.

"Oh dear!" Ezaria exclaimed, walking closer to Shiho. "This is terrible!"

"It's okay, it doesn't hurt much," Shiho reassured with a forced smile. Ezaria becoming upset over nothing was the last thing that Shiho needed.

"Oh no, I meant the dress," Ezaria said, suddenly reaching for Shiho and turning her around. "There's a bit of blood on the top."

Shiho was nearly knocked over as the seamstress suddenly rushed over to the other side. She nearly fell off the stool, yet frowned in annoyance as Ezaria pulled her back suddenly even though it helped her keep her balance. She bit her bottom lip to keep quiet and just stood there as Ezaria and the seamstress panicked behind her back, literally.

"Oh my goodness, you are right!"

"What are we going to do? Blood on white fabric is absolutely the worst thing that could happen!"

"Let's get it off quickly!"

Before she knew it, Ezaria and the seamstress had untied the laces on the top and taken it off her. Then they both rushed out of the room, probably to the laundry room, leaving Shiho standing on the stool in the middle of the room, wearing just a wedding skirt. The sound of their rushed footsteps faded eventually.

"For crying out loud…" Shiho muttered, covering her chest and stepping off the stool.

She grabbed the blouse she had worn before and quickly pulled it over her head and put in on. Once she was properly covered, she finally let out the sigh that she had been holding in all day. She sat down on a chair, not sure of what do next. Ezaria and the seamstress showed no signs of returning and Shiho wasn't exactly in a mood to go and look for them.

Hers arms and chin resting on the window sill, she looked out the window and saw once again how the servants ran about in the garden and tried to get everything ready. Geoffrey was among them now, moving a few plants while waiting for his own to arrive. Things looked no more ready than they were when Shiho had left the garden. She guessed that it was a good thing, but knowing Ezaria she would probably find a way for everything to be done for the wedding no matter how behind schedule they were.

Resting her head against her arm, Shiho closed her eyes and shut out any images of the wedding as her thoughts once again drifted. How on earth was she supposed to think of something that could defeat Ezaria's plans? The woman was a former chairman in the Supreme Council, she had not led the war against the naturals for nothing. But war was all about strategy and using everything to your own best advantage. Shiho might not had the same strategic experience as Ezaria, but this was wedding was one war she wasn't going to lose.

Her mind was still drawing blanks though when it came to actually forming a plan. She didn't know for how long she sat there and tried to think of something but when she opened her eyes again it was because she heard the sound of footsteps. Someone was approaching the parlor. Lifting her head and looking at the watch on her wrist, Shiho noticed that she had been sitting there for almost hour now.

"Oh, you're still here!"

Recognizing Ezaria's voice, Shiho cringed before slowly getting up and forcing herself to look somewhat happy to see her.

"I forgot you were still here," Ezaria laughed while Shiho did not find it funny at all. "We managed to get the spot out and Clara is doing the final touches on the top now. You can change back into your clothes, we still have a few more things to do."

Forcing a smile, Shiho got up and walked over to the divider again, where she quickly took off the skirt and put her jeans back on. Ezaria was waiting for her by the doorway and upon seeing that Shiho had finished changing she left the parlor. Shiho caught up with Ezaria in the hallway, the latter was going through a checklist of everything that needed to be done.

"The dress is almost done, table placements are done, the cake will be delivered on the wedding day…" she murmured, checking off a few things on the list. "Now to the next thing…"

Ezaria made a sudden stop and Shiho did as well. She looked up to see that they had gone into the dining hall and a maid was setting the table for two.

"Time for lunch," Ezaria told and took her seat. "The caterer has come and is cooking a sample menu, I thought that we would taste it and see if anything needs to be change."

"Combining work and lunch," Shiho answered and realized that this was the first thing she had said in a long time.

"Exactly," Ezaria agreed. She took a napkin and folded it elegantly in her lap without making an effort. "After this we'll watch the musician's rehearsal and just make sure that everything in the garden looks alright."

"Wonderful."

Before Ezaria could say anything else, a series of quiet beeps echoed in the large dining room. Shiho looked around at first, but then saw Ezaria picking up her phone and apparently reading a message she had received. Whatever that message said, it must have been good because Ezaria giggled like a schoolgirl and looked very excited when she had finished reading this.

"Excuse me, I'm just going to make a quick phone call," she said, getting up and quickly leaving the dining room.

Shiho said nothing, Ezaria was already gone by the time she opened her mouth. Instead she leaned against the back of the chair, sitting more comfortably and waited for Ezaria to return. The grandfather clock on the other side of the room told her that ten minutes have passed when the maid served the food and Ezaria hadn't returned.

The rich aroma of the food made Shiho's mouth water and suddenly made her feel very hungry. She crossed her arms, staring at the clock and waiting for Ezaria to return.

Another ten minutes passed.

Shiho tapped her fingers against the table, glancing at the food and resisting the urge to start without Ezaria. She tried to rationalize it by thinking that the food would grow cold but the thought of Ezaria getting upset over her starting to eat was slightly worse than going hungry for another few minutes. When she heard footsteps again, she looked over her shoulder in hopes of seeing Ezaria but to her great disappointment it was only another maid passing by.

"Excuse me?"

The maid made a sudden stop and turned towards Shiho who had risen from the chair.

"Have you seen Mrs Jule?" Shiho asked. "She left to make a phone call a while ago."

"No, I haven't, miss," the maid answered and looked apologetic. "Would you like me to look for her?"

"No, it's okay… I'll go look for her myself," Shiho said, already on her way.

She looked in the nearby rooms first but found no trace of Ezaria at all. Every servant who walked by claimed to not have seen her and Shiho was starting to believe that Ezaria had vanished into thin air. Outside on the patio she met up with Geoffrey again, who had not seen Ezaria either. When Shiho went back inside, hands in her pockets like a discontent child, she decided on going back to the dining room and wait there instead.

Taking the first few steps, she sourly thought that the food had to be cold by now when she looked up and saw the half closed doors of the parlor. Perhaps Ezaria had gone back to get the dress and forgotten about Shiho? After all, it would not be the first time that happened.

Approaching the door, Shiho reached out her hand to open it further so that she could go inside. But just as her fingers made contact with the door she suddenly froze right in her tracks. Her whole body began rigid and did not move an inch. Time seemed to stop and the only thing she could think was that her reaction was not weird considering what she saw.

There, standing in the corner of the parlor, were Ezaria and Kevin.

Holding hands.

Kissing.

Shiho didn't know for how long she stood there with her mouth half open in shock. Once her mind was starting to function again, she immediately questioned her own sanity. She couldn't possibly be seeing what she was seeing?

"Kevin… muffin, I can't stay long… Shiho's still waiting…"

Muffin.

This was too absurd to not be real. Feeling a mixture of shock and repulse, Shiho quietly turned around and ran back to the dining room.

* * *

Upon seeing everyone heavily occupied with preparing for the wedding, Yzak made a smart move and ran upstairs into his room before anyone could drag him into doing anything. Once the door was closed behind him and all the noise of the house shut out, he threw himself on his bed. There he lay with his hands tucked underneath his head, staring at the ceiling and enjoying the peace and quiet. The rest of the house could stress themselves to death for all he cared. Except his mother of course, he wished her no harm. 

"Don't you think you can escape by hiding in here."

Yzak sat up quickly.

"Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" he snapped.

Shiho ignored him and entered the room fully before closing the door after her. She stood by the foot of the bed with crossed arms and looked down at Yzak rather angrily. For a moment he forgot about being irritated at her for entering his room.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked.

"I suppose you wouldn't know, you've been running around having fun with Dearka all day while I was stuck here with your mother," Shiho snorted. "Do you know how many needles I've had poked into me today! One of them actually drew blood!"

"I'm sure someone called an ambulance for you," Yzak muttered and lay down on the bed again.

He was starting to get the feeling of déja vú again with Shiho barging into his room and seemingly upset over something.

"You need to do something about your mother," Shiho went on and sat down next to Yzak on the bed. "If you can get to her, then we might have a chance of stopping everything. All you have to do is to tell her what you really feel and stand up for yourself!"

"Yeah, because it's really that easy," Yzak retorted sarcastically. "I haven't seen you having a heart to heart with your parents."

"They're not the ones who are here now, aren't they!" Shiho protested. "Besides, your mother is the one pulling the strings here. She's the one who got us an apartment and now she's up to her ears in planning this wedding, if you don't stop her then…"

"Stop talking about my mother like she's some villain!" Yzak shouted, sitting up.

"She's controlling everything and everyone!" Shiho continued like she had not heard Yzak. "The flowers, my dress, the music…"

"Why the hell do you care about that!"

The question clearly caught her off guard and Yzak saw how Shiho's cheeks became red. But she looked away in hopes that he wouldn't notice.

"I'm just saying… you need to do something about your mom."

"No one is going to do anything to my mother," Yzak muttered angrily, feeling defensive. "And considering your relationship with your own mother, you really shouldn't talk."

He lay back down again and was about to turn his back on Shiho when he saw her face redden again. This time it was not in embarrassment, it was full blown anger. He could see it in her eyes and how she was starting to breathe a lot heavier. A small part of him was starting to regret the words he had spoken.

"…your mother made out with Kevin!"

* * *

Shiho brought her hand up to her lips the moment the words had slipped out of her mouth. What he had said to her had been so hurtful, so inconsiderate. At that moment she had been filled with anger and all she wanted to do was to hurt in response. But now when the anger was gone and the words out of her mouth, she could only sit there in silence and watch Yzak for any sort of reaction. He was still lying there, hands tucked under his head, as before. But his eyes were wide and staring directly at her in a way that made her want to run away and hide. 

"What?" he whispered after a while.

Shiho shook her head.

"No, it was nothing," she murmured. "Don't listen to me, I was just…"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY!"

Shiho let out a gasp as Yzak suddenly rose up and grabbed her by her shoulders. Although she tried to shrug his hands away, his grip on her shoulders was so tight that she could barely move an inch. He moved his face closer to hers, still staring directly into her eyes in a way that made Shiho aware of how rapidly her heart was beating. She convinced herself that it was out of fear because she had no other explanation for it.

"Your mother… I…" Shiho stammered, not sure what to say. "I saw her and Kevin…"

Apparently those few words were all that were needed. Yzak let go of her immediately and jumped off the bed. Just a few moments later he was out of the room and running down the corridor, leaving Shiho all alone in the room. She bit her lip, mentally berating herself for telling him so abruptly. It wasn't like she wasn't going to tell him, but had she not blurted it out in anger she would have found a better way to break it to him.

Considering his reaction, Shiho was sure now that it would have been the right decision.

Leaving the room as well, she looked around for Yzak but found him already on his way downstairs.

"Yzak!" she called. "Wait!"

She ran after him, seeing as he showed no signs of even listening to her. Somewhere in the distance she could hear Ezaria speaking, she had to be close by as well. Taking the last few steps of the stairs, she caught up with Yzak, placed herself in front of him and grabbed his arms to stop him.

"Yzak, wait," she tried. "Listen to me, you have to calm down… nothing good going to come out of this if you…"

"Get off me," Yzak muttered coldly and shoved her arms off him.

Shiho nearly stumbled backwards but stared at him blankly as he turned his back on her and walked away. The way he had spoken to her and just pushed her away… for some reason it felt painful even though there had been no physical harm. She was breathing heavily again, as if breathing normally had suddenly become difficult. It was not out of anger, why was she feeling like this?

Shaking her head, Shiho forced herself to focus and followed Yzak anyway. He headed towards the parlor, from where Ezaria's voice could be heard. When he opened the door completely, they both saw that it was filled with various people from the staff and the ones working on the wedding. Ezaria was standing in the middle of the room and had been speaking up until Yzak had appeared.

"Ah Yzak, you're home!" Ezaria said, approaching Yzak to give him a hug.

But Yzak stepped away, much to Ezaria and everyone else's shock. Instead he looked around and when he finally saw the one he was looking for, he made a beeline for one of the corners in the room. Ezaria looked at Shiho for some explanation, but the latter just tried to avoid her and everyone else's gaze. If there was a moment Shiho wanted to sink through the floor, this was it. In the mean time, Yzak headed towards Kevin.

"YOU!" he exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at the bodyguard. "You son of a…"

"Yzak!" Ezaria rushed forward and placed herself between Yzak and Kevin. "Watch your language!"

"He deserves to be call that!" Yzak yelled in response and then turned to back to Kevin. "You are so dead, I swear…"

"Mr Jule, please calm down," Kevin replied in his usual monotonous voice.

"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!"

"Yzak, honey, what are you doing?" Ezaria questioned, her eyes filled with worry of her son.

"Don't pretend like you don't know!" Yzak shouted loudly, causing Ezaria to take a step back. "Shiho saw you… and him… YOU TWO ARE HAVING AN AFFAIR!"

The staff members drew a collective gasp upon Yzak's revelation and once again looked towards Shiho for an explanation. Shiho smiled awkwardly at them and pretended to admire the nearest vase.

"What…?" Ezaria whispered, full of confusion and guilt at the same time. "Honey, Shiho must have misunderstood what she saw…"

"Are you saying that she's lying?" Yzak cut off abruptly.

When Ezaria looked away instead of answering, Yzak turned back to his primary source of anger. During this whole conversation, Kevin had not moved an inch or even changed his facial expression, a fact that probably infuriated Yzak even more from what Shiho could tell.

"You…" he started again. "I knew something was wrong with you from the start, you stay the hell away from my mother!"

"Mr Jule, please restrain yourself or I will be forced to take action," Kevin spoke.

"So you want to fight, huh? Fine by me! Let's see how much action you can take when you're being trampled by a mobile suit!"

"Yzak!" Ezaria stepped in front of Yzak again and looked straight into his eyes. "I realize that you are upset and trust me, Kevin and I were going to tell you but this is all new to us too! We…" Ezaria's expression changed from looking upset to looking like she was pleading. "Honey, don't you want your mother to be happy?"

Yzak opened his mouth but to everyone's surprise he said nothing. He repeated this several times as if he actually wanted to say something but couldn't find the right words. Either that, or he was just realizing that his mother was right. Shiho watched him in concern, the servants hoped that their ears would be spared from another of round of shouting.

"Screw this!" Yzak snapped and pointed at Kevin. "YOU! You are so fired!"

"Mr Jule, you are not my employer."

"Whatever!"

As Yzak started on another round of shouting, Shiho sighed and buried her face in her hands. Just when things could not possibly get worse, she felt someone tap on her shoulder and turned around to face one of the maids.

"Excuse me miss, Mr and Mrs Hahnenfuss have arrived."

As if called on cue, both her parents came walking from the hallway. Shiho felt as if the last bit of sanity in the house flew away. If she had been able to have things her way, she would have flown away with it.

"Well, aren't you glad to see us?" Keiko asked when Shiho didn't greet them.

Shiho smiled awkwardly.

"Yeah… very."

* * *

_Notes: Return of capslock!Yzak... the final chapter and conclusion to this story is up next.  
_


	10. Dream

**Partially Awake  
Chapter 10: Dream  
**

_Author's notes will be at the end of this chapter._

_

* * *

_

"Mother, no matter how you look at this, from every possible angle there's really nothing that I could have done or can do about it."

Shiho yanked at her hairbrush, which was stuck in her tangled hair. She winced at the pain in her scalp but at the moment nothing was as frustrating as having a large hairbrush permanently attached to her. Keiko watched her struggle, rolled her eyes and stepped forward to help her. She quickly untangled the hairbrush like it and within a matter of seconds she had taken to brush Shiho's hair.

"I'm sure you could have done something," Keiko insisted. "Or at least find a way to fix things now. Everything is in chaos, Yzak is mad at his mother, his mother is seeing that gardener..."

"Bodyguard," Shiho corrected dully. "Not to mention that he's mad at me too."

"Nonsense!" Keiko exclaimed, staring wide eyed at her daughter through the mirror. "Why on earth would he be mad at you?"

Shiho didn't answer, all she did was prop her elbows up on the vanity table and look at herself through the mirror. Her mind was far off though, to be exact it was going back to the night before. The way Yzak had shoved her off and how coldly he had spoken to her before going into the parlor had bothered her all night. Had he merely yelled about his mother or Kevin she would never have dwelled on it and just passed it off as his normal behaviour. But last night she had tried to talk to him after the whole ordeal and he had just stormed past her before going back upstairs and into his room.

Sighing, Shiho's entire being sank down and she rested her head against the cool, wooden surface of the vanity table. She was so not in the mood for going down and facing everyone at breakfast. The hours she should have spent sleeping were spent tossing and turning in her bed instead, unable to stop her train of thoughts.

Keiko sighed and finished brushing Shiho's hair. Pulling Shiho up so that she was sitting upright again, Keiko proceeded to gather Shiho's hair in her hands and tied the end together with a short black ribbon.

"I'm sure that you two will make up soon. After all you have to, the wedding is tomorrow."

Upon hearing her mother mention the wedding, Shiho sank down again, her forehead colliding somewhat painfully against the vanity table. Keiko, mistaking it for something else, put her hands on Shiho's shoulders.

"Every bride and groom has these moments," she said. "God knows your father and I didn't always agree when we were young. But you'll get past that and learn to stay with each other through ups and downs."

Shiho raised her head a little, looking at her mother through the mirror. It sounded like her mother had just tried to comfort her, something that probably hadn't happened since that time when she was seven and thought that Santa was really the local drunk in disguise. She felt unsure about what do say and hoped that her mother's next move wouldn't be to give her a hug.

"Let's go downstairs and get some breakfast, your father is waiting for us," Keiko said suddenly, sparing Shiho from what could have been an awkward "thank you" moment.

In return Shiho just nodded and followed her mother out of the room and downstairs. They entered the dining room together, while Yzak, Ezaria and Friedrich were already seated at the table. Kevin was standing in a corner behind Ezaria as usual. Not a single word was said and all that could be heard was the sound of knives and forks against porcelain. Shiho tried to ignore the nervous feeling in her stomach as she sat down on her seat next to Yzak, not really knowing what to expect.

However, everyone ate in silence and not even Shiho and her mother's arrival had changed anything. Ezaria occasionally made small attempts to start a conversation with Yzak but in return she only got short answers or none at all. Friedrich was reading the newspaper quietly, but considering that's how he had spent most breakfasts for as long as Shiho could remember, it seemed like the tense atmosphere in the room didn't seem to bother him much. Shiho and Keiko were the only ones upholding some sort of communication, although it was mostly by exchanging looks.

The entire meal passed without anyone saying anything substantial and just as Shiho had finished her plate she started to think about what the best way to get out of there as soon as possible. It was then that Friedrich finished reading his newspaper, his coffee and to everyone else's' surprised, started talking.

"So Yzak…" he began and the latter looked up upon hearing his name. "Keiko and I arrived a bit late yesterday, have to say I blame my work for delaying us. But today is a nice day, perhaps we should take that golf game, unless you have something to do?"

Shiho had to blink a few times and look again to make sure that the man sitting on the other side of her table was really her father. When she had established that and gotten over the surprise of him suggesting a golf game after all that had happened, she turned her eyes to Yzak. He was probably just as surprised as she was, but did a good job hiding it.

"No, not at all," he answered. "Sounds like a good idea, sir."

"Then it's set!" Friedrich turned to Keiko next. "Would you like to come as well? It's been a while since we've found the time to play a round together."

"I would love to," Keiko smiled and looked at Shiho in a way that made Shiho think that she was up to something.

For that same reason, she also started to feel very afraid.

* * *

"That will be all for now, thank you." 

In the corner of her eye Shiho saw the maid being dismissed and quietly leave the parlor. The doors creaked as the maid closed them and Shiho returned to looking out the window. Preparations were still going on outside, in a more effective manner than yesterday. Now it actually looked like everything was almost finished.

"Shiho? Come here and have a cup of tea."

Shiho turned around, Ezaria was sitting on the couch and pouring the tea that the maid had brought. She accepted the cup that Ezaria handed to her and sat down next to her. The tea was steaming hot and she set it down on the table for the time being.

"You're not busy with the preparations today?" Shiho asked, just to start a conversation. Ezaria offered her a biscuit and she took the smallest one, not particularly hungry since they had just had breakfast.

"No, I delegated away most of the assignments," Ezaria answered, looking extremely tired as she sat down and sipped her tea. "With the way things are with Yzak… well, you know. I'm not feeling particularly well today."

Despite the irritation Shiho had felt for Ezaria yesterday, it all disappeared to make place for sympathy. One could say what they wanted about Ezaria as a person, but as a mother there was no way to doubt her love for her son.

"I'm sure things will work out," Shiho reassured and felt like she sounded exactly like her mother.

Ezaria smiled weakly at her.

"I hope so. But this is the first and only time he has been this angry with me… and I guess it's the first time that I've disappointed him."

Not knowing what to say in response, Shiho picked up her tea cup and carefully took a sip. Meanwhile, Ezaria reached for something lying next to the tray on the table. The maid had brought it with her and as Ezaria sat back in the couch again, she saw that it was a leather-bound book. Ezaria stared at the book in silence for a while, lost in thought. After a while she opened the book and on the first page were several photos, corners tucked into the pages.

"Can you tell who this is?" Ezaria asked, showing Shiho the first page.

Leaning closer to get a better look, Shiho saw how all the pictures on the first page were of the same man. He was young, perhaps in his early twenties, with pale blond hair and dark blue eyes. His face was somewhat angular and his smile was border lining a confident smirk. Although there wasn't much of a physical resemblance, it was the smile that gave Shiho an idea of who this young man was.

"Yzak's father?" she guessed.

Ezaria nodded.

"Yes… Abraham." She smiled, as if remembering something funny. "He hated that name."

She flipped to the second page and the young man was no longer alone on the pictures. He was among countless friends and there was a girl with long silvery hair and striking blue eyes who was by his side in every picture.

"These were taken in Cambridge, where we met," Ezaria went on. "I would be lying, if I didn't say it was the happiest time of my life."

There were several pages with the two of them. Scenery, hair cuts and clothes changed but the affection of the young couple didn't. Then Ezaria flipped the pages again and everything changed. There was no longer a happy young couple smiling and laughing at each other. Instead, all the photos were of a baby, sometimes sleeping, sometimes awake but most of the time just screaming. A few of the pictures were of Ezaria holding the baby, but there was never a father in any of the pictures.

"Yes… Yzak never had the chance to meet him," Ezaria told, confirming Shiho's guess.

"How did he…" Shiho started, but stopped right away when she realized what she was about to ask.

She looked at Ezaria to see her reaction, but the latter was staring at the pictures and seemed to have taken no offense.

"Blue Cosmos," she answered simply and shook her head. "It was a different time back then. We had heard of how other coordinators were threatened, beaten or even killed. But it never occurred to us that it would happen to us, in the safety of our home, our town. I was already pregnant with Yzak and I used to have this craving for a certain kind of ice cream. Abraham got up in the middle of the night and drove to the store just to get that ice cream for me. He never came back."

A strange knot forming in Shiho's stomach, she struggled to say something to the older woman.

"I'm sorry," she finally whispered.

"No, it's alright," Ezaria assured, but Shiho could see that her eyes were glistening. "Anyway, after that I left for PLANT right away and Yzak was born."

She flipped the pages of the photo album again and what Shiho saw was more shocking than anything else that had happened the past week.

"Oh my God," she gasped.

There was a picture of a round faced toddler, dressed in a baby blue pyjamas but completely smudged in dirt, clutching a teddy bear as if it was life itself and pouting at the camera. At first her mind didn't want to register it but after a while it sunk in that this sulking toddler was now her fiancé and commander, the one who could make rookies cower in fear by just looking at them.

"Yes, he was quite attached to that teddy," Ezaria chuckled. "He was all dirty because he had managed to get outside somehow and the nanny wanted to give him a bath and wash the teddy for him but he refused. I couldn't help but to take a picture."

"But… he looks so…" Shiho struggled to find the right word. "…cute."

"Not exactly the way you are used to seeing him, I imagine?" Ezaria asked and continued when Shiho shook her head. "He takes after me, he's used to getting what he wants. That's why you will be good for him."

Shiho blinked, surprised by the unexpected turn in the conversation.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

Ezaria smiled again and put her hand over Shiho's. Shiho didn't know what it was, perhaps it was how honest and open Ezaria had been during this conversation but for the first time she didn't even think about wanting to pull her hand away.

"Yzak can be brash and headstrong… and he doesn't always know what to do. As a mother, naturally I'll want to help him as much as I can. But we can't always be around each other and perhaps I'll have my own life with Kevin now. You're a sensible girl, Shiho. I have a feeling you'll be able to keep him grounded and be a good judgement to him."

* * *

The ball slowly rolled forward and then abruptly disappeared down into the hole. 

"Victory at last!" Friedrich exclaimed happily and picked up the ball.

"I would hardly say at last, you played so well that Yzak and I were ready to admit defeat after the first three holes," Keiko said with a smile when Friedrich returned to her and Yzak.

"Well, you two are probably up for a rematch!" Friedrich challenged joyfully.

His wife laughed and took away both the ball and the golf club.

"I believe it's enough for today. Let's head back to the club and have lunch there before we go back."

After the golf clubs had been handed to the caddies, the three of them set off towards the club, Friedrich and Keiko chatting lively with each other and Yzak adding to the conversation now and then. At first Yzak had found it difficult to converse with the couple, seeing as he had been in a less than happy mood since the day before. But once on the golf course he found himself more at ease. Friedrich obviously enjoyed playing golf and naturally started more conversations with Yzak, Friedrich's military background making it easier for them to find things to talk about.

Once they reached the club, Keiko excused herself to go to the ladies room and left Friedrich and Yzak to find a table at the restaurant. That task was done within moments, the hostess only had to take a look at Friedrich and Yzak to know that they were important and showed them the best table in the restaurant. It was located in a private lounge on the second floor of the restaurant, a lounge that was more like an outdoor patio. With nothing else to do, Yzak and Friedrich simply sat down and waited for Keiko.

"I'll take you up on the rematch next time we are both here in Martius Two," Yzak said. "Currently my work schedule hasn't allowed me much time to practise."

"Ah, I was like that too when I was in ZAFT," Friedrich told. "I guess it's my change of profession that has allowed me the time to play. After all, military disputes are settled in battles or boardrooms, business deals are settled on golf courses."

Yzak chuckled lightly.

Friedrich leaned back in the chair to sit more comfortably.

"May I ask you a question, Yzak?"

While Friedrich's light hearted tone never changed, the question itself was so sudden that Yzak felt caught off guard.

"Of course," he answered automatically.

"How do you feel about my daughter?"

Feeling as if someone had just emptied a bucket of ice cold water over him, Yzak just sat there with his mouth half open but unable to utter a single word. Friedrich watched him for a while but after a few minutes when Yzak still had not said anything, he chuckled.

"I take it from your reaction that you don't have a straight answer for me," he concluded.

"No, sir, it's just that…" Yzak started.

"You don't have to say anything," Friedrich cut off. "I am merely curious that's all. After all, considering how you two have conspired together all this time I am surprised that one of your plans haven't worked yet."

Once again, Yzak felt shock upon hearing Friedrich's words.

"You knew?"

"Shiho is my daughter after all, how wouldn't I know?" Friedrich scoffed. "My wife may be too happy about this match to see it, but Shiho has tried to find ways of getting out of things we want her to do since she was little. When her mother wanted her to take ballet lessons, she could sabotage her own clothes in secret so that when she got to the lesson she'd have nothing to wear!"

The way Friedrich spoke about Shiho was light hearted and Yzak could not help but to feel more surprised. Friedrich had known from the start that he and Shiho would try to get out of their marriage but had not said anything about it until now. No matter how much Yzak thought about it, he couldn't understand why.

"If you don't mind me asking, if you knew then why haven't you said anything to us?" Yzak asked, looking right into the older man's eyes. "Or try to stop us?"

Friedrich smiled softly.

"Are any of your friends married, Yzak?" The latter shook his head and Friedrich went on. "None of my friends were married either when I married Keiko. I loved her and wanted to be with her, but all I heard from my friends was how I would be giving up my freedom and how I would be forced into a routine for the rest of my life. My bachelor party was all about enjoying my last night of freedom, so you can imagine that I entered my marriage with a handful of doubts."

Friedrich shifted in his chair and continued to tell his story while looking out at the view of the entire golf course.

"And they were right, to some extent. Getting married means that you can no longer do some of the things you can when you are not. But in the whole grand design, does it matter? I found that what I gained in return was worth much more, it felt like I was only partially awake to the world before. A family, someone to depend on, loving someone unconditionally and being loved unconditionally in return. Am I wrong to wish that for my daughter, who hates conditions above all?"

Friedrich turned to look at Yzak again and Yzak stared back at him.

"No," he replied truthfully.

Friedrich looked pleased to hear it, but Yzak got the feeling that it was because Yzak had truly understood all the things he had said. Seconds and minutes passed in silence after that, but it was a comfortable silence with both men deep in their own thoughts. After a while, Friedrich stood up as Keiko came out to the patio.

"My, I have to say that the view here is lovely," she complimented as she approached their table. "We should definitely come here more often. Have you two ordered yet?"

"Not yet, dear," Friedrich answered and pulled out the chair for his wife.

Yzak watched them silently, noticing how that simple gesture and simply endearment still brought a smile to Keiko's lips even after twenty five years of marriage.

* * *

The sun had set and darkness had fallen over Martius Two, bringing a strange peace with it that could not be felt during the day. It was only in the evening that one could truly enjoy the cool breeze and the comfortable silence. Because of the sunny and clear day, the stars became fully visible in the dark. It was something Yzak and Shiho noticed as they were standing in the gazebo and looking up at the sky. They were both lost in their own thoughts and had not spoken since they had excused themselves after dinner with the intention of going out on a walk. But their walk had been short and somehow they had ended up in the gazebo just as they had last time. 

Without turning her head, Shiho turned her eyes to Yzak. He was leaning against the railing, arms crossed and looking up. She thought back to earlier that afternoon and the pictures of Ezaria's husband. Although Yzak physically resembled his mother more than his father, there was something in the way he carried himself that resembled his father.

"Why are you staring at me?" Yzak asked suddenly.

Shiho turned away, grateful that the darkness hid the flush on her cheeks.

"Are you still mad at me?" she asked, taking a deep breath afterwards.

When he did not answer her, she bit her lip and scolded herself for asking that question. Why did she have to ask that? In the short time for her to start feeling mental agony, Yzak thought about her question and then provided her with an answer.

"I was mad at my mother," Yzak told, not looking at her as he answered.

"Okay."

It was as simple as that and with her one word answer they had finished their discussion on that topic. She almost felt silly thinking about how much time she had spent agonizing about this. But he was no upset with her and that was all that mattered.

...where did that last part come from?

"So what are we going to do?" Shiho asked, just to start a conversation. She turned around and leaned her back against the railing. Before her and Yzak were lines of chairs with a cleared passage in the middle. A little further away stood several tables and a large white tent in the case of bad weather. "It's all going to happen tomorrow."

"Is there anything we can do?"

Shiho looked at Yzak, surprised at the words he had said. He was still looking up at the sky and there was something unreadable in his expression that she could not figure out.

"Of course there is." Shiho frowned. "There's always something we can do, we just have to figure it out."

"Is there?" Yzak questioned. "You've been saying stuff like this since day one, yet we've accomplished nothing."

He finally turned to look at her right into her eyes. She turned away her gaze automatically so that their eyes wouldn't meet but he kept staring at her as if he wanted something out of her. Shiho suddenly felt as if she wanted to take a step back away from him.

"What's wrong with you? You're acting weird."

"Your father knows, Shiho. He told me he's known since the beginning that we've tried to get out of this... but he's still not changing his mind about it."

Feeling as if the warm summer evening had changed to be cold and hard, Shiho wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head. At first it was in disbelief, how could her father had known and not said anything? It was improbable, after all her father had hardly voiced his opinion on this marriage, it was her mother who had done all the talking for them. But then it slowly came to her, memories of her father sitting in silence while everyone else were too busy talking to notice anything else. Perhaps in all those silent moments hidden behind a newspaper or a glass of wine, he had done more watching and listening than Shiho had imagined.

Forcing those thoughts away, Shiho shook her head. She had to stay level-headed, think of another solution...

"Then we'll try working on your mother," she suggested. "Try to get her to break things off, if we just..."

She stopped in the middle of the sentence, unable to finish it. Her mind started to wander back to the conversation she had had with Ezaria earlier. She remembered how Ezaria had talked about her husband and finally how she wanted someone for Yzak. Shiho felt an odd lump forming in her throat at the thought how it. How could she possibly do or say anything to make Ezaria change her mind after how Ezaria had confided in her?

"Shiho..."

Shiho looked up at Yzak. She recognized the conflicted look in his eyes simply because she felt the exact same thing.

"We have to face it, we're the only ones now who can break this off," Yzak went on.

He spoke so decisively, as if he had already resigned himself to that fact. Shaking her head again, Shiho turned away from Yzak and started to pace around the gazebo. She had to do something, anything. Yzak watched her walk back and forth, following her with his eyes.

"No, I will not," she said in a trembling voice. "I will not do this again, they... they are my parents. I'm not throwing away my last chance with them. But I refuse to be forced into this marriage for their sake! I can't..."

"Shiho!"

In the blink of an eye, Yzak was standing in front of her and grabbed her arms with both hands. Shiho jumped, startled by his sudden movement but Yzak paid no mind to that. His tight grip on her arms prevented her from pulling away and his face was merely inches from her as if he wanted to force her to look at him. But Shiho turned her head to the side, silently refusing.

"It's over, we've lost," Yzak spoke, the tone of his voice convincing them both that it was unquestionable.

They stood there for a long time, neither of them moving. Shiho closed her eyes in a final attempt to refuse to accept what he had just said. But she found it impossible to do and when she met his gaze, she had the same defeated look in her eyes that was in his.

"...what are we going to do?" she whispered.

Yzak's grip on her arms tightened a little more.

"We're going to end all these games, plans... and we're going to make a choice for ourselves."

* * *

The chairs that had stood empty for days and night were each taken by the time the sun rose to midday. The garden seemed to buzz with excitement, there was no a single guest who was not involved with in conversation and each of them eagerly waited for the ceremony to start. It did not matter that everyone had been invited on a relatively short notice. This was definitely the most anticipated wedding of the year and the moment the guests had arrived and seen the lavishly decorated garden it was clear that everything would like up to their expectations. 

That was, when the groom would arrive.

When the discussion and admiration about the flowers and the music were done, the guests started to pay attention to the fact that neither the groom nor his mother was in sight. The bride and her family were no where to be seen either, but that was expected since she wasn't supposed to appear until the ceremony started. But no one had seen the groom and although his mother had greeted the first guests upon their arrival, she was no where to be seen either. The minister stood alone in the gazebo, looking a little awkward.

Talks about the bride or the groom running away began to surface although neither could understand why. They were both from respectable families, in the military and a good match in every way. Some tried talking to the best man, a charming young man serving on the same ship as the groom and the bride. Although they asked him every possible question on the couple and his opinion on whether something was amiss, the young man just smiled and shrugged in return.

Just as the gossip and the speculation reached its peak, the mothers of the bride and groom suddenly appeared. They ignored whispered questions from the guests and took their places in the gazebo. After talking to the minister, the mother of the groom gestured at the band and everyone fell silent. The singer was a petite looking girl, who started to sing a slow ballad without being accompanied by any music or the traditional wedding march.

"If you stray too far, my love will take you home..."

The groom soon appeared as well, stepping up into the gazebo and receiving a long hug from his mother. He exchanged a few words with his best man, the latter had a mixture of amusement and pride on his face, before taking his place and looking straight forward to the end of the garden.

And there she was.

"If you feel doubt, my love will take you home..."

Her face was covered with a veil, yet he could see right into her eyes. They remained standing like that for a few seconds, before the bride turned to look at her father. The father smiled at his daughter, then started to lead her down the aisle.

The guest rose to their feet and turned their heads to follow the bride as she walked past them. She did not turn to look back at them even once, instead she followed the straight path to the gazebo.

"If you fall, I'll be there to catch you, my love will take you home..."

The short song came to an end just as the bride stepped up on the gazebo. She received a light kiss on her cheek by her father before he walked off to stand by her mother's side. The flower bouquet was passed to her mother as well and the latter smiled proudly and affectionately.

In a moment all the guests had been waiting for, the bride and the groom turned to each other and grasped each other's hands.

The minister began the ceremony, starting with a speech that everyone but the couple listened to. Vows were taken, words being said and rings exchanged. The last declaration was said by the smiling minister, finalizing the ceremony. The groom, who had practically not broken off eye contact with the bride since she had appeared, gently grasped the ends of her veil and lifted it over her head.

There was a moment of hesitation, a moment of doubt in their eyes that no one else but them could see.

But then it happened and everyone applauded as Yzak Jule kissed Shiho Hahnenfuss for the very first time.

* * *

"So..." 

"...so."

Awkward was a severe understatement for the atmosphere in the room. After all, it wasn't any day that people found themselves newly married and alone in the honeymoon suite of the most luxurious hotel at Martius Two.

Still dressed in their wedding clothes, Yzak and Shiho sat on the bed and stared blankly at the wall before them. They had sat there for quite a while, having left the wedding reception almost two hours ago. The party had gone on without them though and while the guests were having fun they were stuck together in a room without knowing what to do or say.

"The room is nice..." Shiho commented after a while. "Very... red."

Yzak looked up and noticed the same thing. Thick, red carpets on the floor, red roses here and there, red bed sheets... there was no doubt that this was a typical honeymoon suite for typical newlyweds. The thing was, he and Shiho were hardly typical in that department.

He heard the rustle of Shiho's dress and saw her getting up. She walked over to the full length mirror on the other side of the room and reached up to do something with her veil. It took a while for Yzak to realize that she was trying to take it off, because the veil was attached to the tiara that had been laced into her hairdo and Shiho was not having much luck in taking it off. Yzak rose to his feet.

"Need any help with that?" he asked, coming up behind her and catching her eyes through the mirror.

When Shiho nodded and let her arms drop, Yzak reached up and started to work on the tiara. He detached the veil first, and then gently tried to pry the tiara out of Shiho's hair. It was a task easier said than done, Yzak frowned once he saw how neatly it had been tucked in to Shiho's hair along with at least a dozen of hair pins.

"What the hell..." he whispered to himself, trying to look for a way to get the tiara out.

Shiho chuckled.

"You can pull them out if you want to."

Deducting that it was the only way he could get the tiara off, Yzak started to pull off the hair pins one by one. The hair pins lay in a small pile on the table next to them along with the tiara when he was done. Shiho's hair had been completely let down and it was only then that he noticed that her hair had been curled for the wedding. In an impulsive moment he could not resist taking a lock of hair and feel its softness between his fingers.

All his energy seemed to escape from him at that moment and he reached forward to put his hands on Shiho's shoulder as he leaned his head against hers. Although he was not physically tired, the past few days had been draining and the exhaustion seemed to come all at once. He closed his eyes. The feeling of Shiho's hair against his face was oddly soothing, though.

"Yzak...?" Shiho whispered breathlessly.

"Mm...?" he drawled lazily.

"I... um... we should..." Shiho stammered.

Just as Yzak was about to ask her to just say it out loud, there was loud knocking on the door. He felt Shiho jump slightly beneath his hands and they both stared into the direction of the door. None of them moved and when they heard a second knock, Yzak let his hands slide off Shiho's shoulders as she turned to him.

"Who could that be?"

Shrugging, Yzak left her and headed towards the door. He frowned, trying to think of what sort of idiot would knock on the door and disturb the wedding night of two newlyweds. After he unlocked the door and pulled it open, his only thought was that he should have known.

"Dearka!"

Standing on the other side of the door was his best friend, with one hand raised as if he was about to knock on the door again and the other hand grasping a large bottle. His tie and shirt were loose and it looked like his jacket had just been draped on him. As if his overall appearance wasn't enough, the distinct smell of alcohol told Yzak the obvious that Dearka was drunk.

"Heeeeyyy!" Dearka greeted so loudly that Yzak was forced to take a step back. "How is going!"

Definitely drunk.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Yzak hissed.

"Just thought that I'd go see my two best friends!" Dearka answered, still in that loud tone.

He stepped right past Yzak and into the suite. Yzak watched him, pondering what could possibly bring Dearka to want to see him and Shiho on their wedding night. Then again, alcohol always had a funny effect on Dearka. Scowling, Yzak found no other choice than to close the door and drag his feet as he followed Dearka further inside the suite. He caught up with the latter who had just caught sight on Shiho.

"Yzak, look! It's Shiho! And she's wearing a dress!"

As Dearka started to laugh hysterically for no reason, Shiho exchanged a confused look with Yzak. Groaning, Yzak grabbed Dearka by his arm and led him away from Shiho. Just as Dearka was about to finish what was left of the liquid in his bottle, Yzak snatched it away from him. He smelled at it, then took a look on the label.

"What the hell is with you?" Yzak asked and pushed at Dearka so that he wouldn't walk into the wall on his way to the couch. "This stuff is strong."

"That'ssss... the meaning..." Dearka slurred, stumbling over the coffee table but luckily he was too drunk to be in pain. He fell over and luckily landed on the couch.

Yzak took a deep breath and convinced himself to not finish the bottle himself in order to get the strength to deal with this. Perhaps smashing the bottle against something would make him feel better.

"You guys... lucky..." Dearka said, his voice muffled since his face was buried in a cushion and he had seen no purpose on turning around to lie on his back. Yzak raised an eyebrow and Dearka went on. "You haff each oder... and Ah'm 'lone."

Yzak looked over his shoulder and met Shiho's eyes.

This was going to be a long night.

* * *

It was 1 a.m. when Yzak decided that he had had enough of Dearka's babbling that made no sense. Normally he would at least attempt to be a good friend and listen, but when Dearka had talked for two hours about everything from quality of picnic baskets to Socrates he concluded that the latter was clearly avoiding the real subject. As the topic switched from canned peaches to synchronized swimming, Yzak got up and walked into the bedroom section of the suite. 

There he found Shiho, changed out of her wedding dress and into a bathrobe. But her change of attire wasn't what he noticed first, it was the fact that she was sitting comfortably on the bed with a plate of chocolate cake.

"Where did you get that?" he questioned, with narrowed eyes.

"Roomservice," Shiho answered and shrugged but he could tell that there was a hint of a smirk on her lips.

"I've been listening to Dearka's thoughts on stuff like cell phone straps for two hours and you're eating cake!" Yzak exclaimed, almost in disbelief.

When Shiho just stared at him blankly, the only explanation he could come up with for his outburst was:

"It's not fair!"

Sighing, Shiho set aside the cake and got up from the bed. She walked over to Yzak and after taking a closer look at him, she smiled.

"I'll try talking to him," she suggested. "Why don't you take a shower or something? You look exhausted."

Leaving the bedroom, Shiho walked over to the couch where Dearka was lying. He was still talking about synchronized swimming and had obviously been oblivious to the fact that Yzak was no longer there. Shiho pulled over a chair and sat down on it.

"Dearka," she started calmly.

Dearka turned his head just enough for him to look at Shiho. He muffled something that sounded like a greeting but also like he was asking for potato chips. Ignoring that, Shiho crossed her legs and sat up straight.

"So why did you drink so much at the reception?" she asked, going straight to the point.

"I dunno," Dearka murmured.

"Is it because you felt alone?" Shiho went on, remembering what Dearka had said before. When he didn't answer her, she bit her lip and thought of the next question. "Who do you think of when you're alone?"

"Milly."

A girl. Who would have thought that someone who was so charming around ladies, and had the female crew of Voltaire following him, was actually hung up on one girl? Shiho thought for a while, but the name Milly didn't sound familiar to her. It couldn't be anyone she knew.

"And who is Milly?"

"Milly was on Archangel," Dearka replied gloomily.

_Of course..._ Shiho thought.

The Archangel, she recognized. It was one of the ships in the Three Ships Alliance and the ship Yzak had been on after the battle of Jachin Due. Though Shiho had participated in the battle herself, she still wasn't exactly sure of what had happened. One minute Yzak was leading the defense, the other he was gone and the next thing Shiho heard regarding him was after the battle and that she was supposed to escort her commander back to ZAFT from the Archangel because apparently he had defected. It was also there she had met Dearka for the first time, when Yzak was getting into the shuttle with her and asked Dearka to come with him. She had not even been introduced to Dearka back then and therefore didn't understand why the pilot of Buster would refuse to go back to ZAFT and instead stay on what used to be an enemy ship.

She had not known back then, but she knew now. If anything, Dearka's current pathetic state was another affirmation on how deeply he felt for this girl. If he had been prepared to not return to ZAFT for her sake, then crashing his friends' wedding night probably didn't seem that difficult.

"What happened between you and Milly?" Shiho asked, feeling as if she was talking to a small child by asking all those questions and receiving short answers.

"She dumped me," Dearka said in a tone that reminded Shiho of a sad puppy. "She said that I... asked too much of her..."

Sighing quietly, Shiho rose from her chair. She grabbed Dearka by his shoulder and pulled him up so that he was sitting instead. Dearka made no resistance, too busy being drunk and depressed.

"Listen to me," Shiho started, grabbing Dearka's chin and forcing him to look at her. She did her best to try and sound encouraging as she spoke. "If she dumped you, then that's her loss. You are a good person! You're smart, you're handsome, you're funny and you deserve someone who can appreciate you!"

Dearka stared at her, eyes wide in the aftermath of what she had said. He didn't say a word but just stared at her as if he was seeing something completely new. Shiho looked at him hopefully, perhaps all he really needed to get over this girl was a little bit of encouragement?

But suddenly his expression changed, going from blank to downright sad. And, God help her, Shiho could swear that she saw tears forming.

"But I don't want anyone else..." he sobbed, reaching for the bottle that Yzak had taken before and emptying its content in one gulp.

As he went off to the mini bar in search for more, Shiho sighed again. Admitting defeat, she ran her hand through her hair and returned to the bedroom. Just as she was about to collapse on the bed, she noticed how half of it was already being occupied. Her eyes trailed the path of legs in a pair of black pants, up to a white shirt and then up to Yzak's smirking face. In his hand was a plate and crumbs were the only thing that was left of her precious chocolate cake.

"So how does it feel now?" Yzak asked, still smirking and waving the spoon almost sadistically in Shiho's face.

Shiho stared at him in disbelief.

"I hate you," she muttered and sat down on the other side of the bed, completely cakeless.

* * *

It was 3 a.m. when Yzak finally tired of Dearka's pathetic sobbing and dragged him into the bathroom. Turning on the shower and adjusting it so that it was as cold as possible, he pushed Dearka into the shower booth and refused to open the shower door until a good five minutes had passed. Least to say, the Dearka who emerged after five minutes of being showered with ice cold water was anything but a sobbing, pathetic person. 

"What the hell was that for!" Dearka yelled, shivered in his wet clothes.

Yzak was unfazed by his yelling, although he found it oddly strange that Dearka was the one yelling and he was not for once. Pulling a large, thick towel from the shelf, Yzak tossed it at Dearka who quickly wrapped it around himself.

"That's more like it, I was starting to think that I had a girl for a friend," Yzak muttered, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. "You're one pathetic idiot when you're drunk, you know that right?"

"Well, you're a lousy friend," Dearka retorted, clearly upset.

Those words stung a little, but even Yzak could tell that this was not how Dearka would normally act. After all, how often did Dearka really want to talk about Miriallia?

"You're all messed up," Yzak went on. "You stand there and pretend like everything's fine with you when you know it's not. Then you get wasted and go on and on about how much you like her and how she dumped you. Well, that's life and when it throws you crap situations you either do something about it or accept it. You make a choice, then whether it turns out to be wrong or not then at least you've tried. Or you could just go on as you do now, which is nothing and yeah, we've all seen how well that has worked."

Dearka didn't answer him and Yzak said nothing more. He just stood there and watched Dearka in silence, knowing that his words rang true and that deep inside Dearka knew it as well. They had known each for a long time, long enough to understand each other. Perhaps that was why Dearka was silent now, because what Yzak had said was not just his observation but something Dearka had failed to notice himself.

Just when Yzak felt one of his leg starting to cramp up after standing still for so long, Dearka suddenly took a step forwards. He didn't stop there and soon he had pushed Yzak out of the way to get out of the bathroom.

"Where the hell are you going!" Yzak shouted, following Dearka out of the suite and out in the corridor.

The response he got as a wet towel that Dearka threw back at him.

"I'm going to Orb!" Dearka shouted over his shoulder. "And I'm taking two months off!"

Scrambling to get the towel off him, Yzak fought the urge to roll it into a ball and throw it right back at Dearka.

"You can't do that!" he hollered. "Dearka, come back! I swear I'm gonna kill you!"

But his threats were of no use. Dearka disappeared around the corner, either he had not heard Yzak or he just chose to ignore it. Yzak frowned, but somehow he found it difficult to stay mad at Dearka for what he was doing. Instead he just returned to the suite, closing the door behind him and throwing the wet towel over the back of a chair. When he entered the bedroom, he saw that Shiho was lying on the bed underneath the covers. She was still awake though and had been long enough to hear everything, seeing as she mocked Yzak by doing a thumbs up.

"Shut up," Yzak mumbled, even though she technically hadn't said anything.

He kicked off his shoes and lay down on the bed next to her.

"He's off to Orb then..." Shiho started. "Do you think he'll be back?"

Yzak folded his hands underneath his head and shrugged. Shiho said nothing else and they lay there quietly as Yzak stared up at the ceiling. His entire body seemed to sink further into the bed as he did and once again it occurred to him that it had been a long day. Turning his head, he saw that Shiho was lying on her back as well, staring up at the ceiling in the same way.

"I can't believe we're married," she said suddenly.

"I can't believe we spent our wedding night with Dearka," Yzak scoffed.

Shiho laughed softly at his words and hearing her laugh somehow took away the frown on his face. But her laughter eventually faded and she turned her eyes away from the ceiling to face him instead.

"Do you think it's okay?" she asked quietly. "To do what we did?"

Yzak shrugged again.

"People have married for lesser reasons," he answered. "At least we were sober."

The room fell into silence again and the watch on Yzak's wrist told him that it was 3:24 a.m. It was almost morning. He took off his watch, not wanting another reminder of how many hours it had been since he woke up. Meanwhile, Shiho found a remote control lying on the nightstand on her side of the bed. She pressed the red "On" button and the TV standing across the bed came to life. Yzak turned off the lights at his side of the bed, leaving the room with dimmed lights.

Shiho flipped through the channels, making a face each time she ended up with an animal documentary or a bad music video. Finally, she flipped to the only channel that was left. There was nothing about animals or bad music there, instead she found herself looking at the same movie she and Yzak had seen that night at her apartment. The middle-aged man and the young woman were still running around the streets of Tokyo and taking every chance they had to hug and kiss.

"I can't believe this..." Shiho whispered. "Of all the movies they have to show..."

She stopped speaking, inhaling deeply as she suddenly felt a pair of hands slip around her waist and a warm body pressing against her back. A tingling sensation went through her entire body and she did not dare to say anything or move. Whether it was because of the shock or fear of ruining the moment, she did not know. Breathing normally suddenly became very difficult as she felt Yzak burying his face in the back of her neck.

"Shiho... do you really want to watch this movie?" he murmured, his voice laced with want of sleep.

Shiho swallowed and forced herself to speak.

"N-not really." She took another deep breath. "What did you have in mind?"

She felt Yzak shift behind her and he propped himself up on one elbow so that she could look at him. Their eyes met and though it was far from the first time that it had happened, Shiho felt something strangely new rising within her. It was a strange feeling and she wasn't sure what it was, but she could hear the sound of her own heartbeat louder than ever and then there was that urge to reach up to Yzak and...

Somewhere on the line between her two last thoughts, Yzak reached over and turned off the rest of the lights.

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_**Fin.**_

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Author's notes:_ ...and that concludes Partially Awake. ) It's strange that this story is done, I've had a bad history with finishing multichaptered fanfics so I'm mostly amazed that I managed to finish this. Originally this fanfic started out as an angst/drama since that's what I'm used to writing. However, least to say I changed my mind after writing the first scene of chapter 1 and discovering that there was no way this fanfic could be angsty after starting out that way. The ending was a bit problematic as well, but in the end I decided to go with my original idea. The other one was (as someone almost guessed) to have Ezaria and Kevin marry in the end in a very "Princess Diaries 2" ending.

I'd like to thank everyone who has read this, reviewed, given me tips... the support for this fanfic is what motivated me most to finish it. Before I had no idea that so many people liked the Yzak/Shiho ship and I'm happy to discover that I wasn't the only shipper. Another big thanks goes to the one who wrote the opening theme for the Hong Kong drama "War and Beauty". It's practically the only song that I've listened to while writing this and its given me a lot of inspiration when I've needed it.

As for the next Yzak/Shiho fic... it might take a while before I get started on it, but the basic premise is finished as well as the summary:

**_A week to remember:_** _Shiho Hahnenfuss is having the worst week ever. She's the only girl in the new squad, the chef on the ship hates her and her captain can't seem to remember her name._

Again, thanks to all of you for reading and hope to see you read the next one!

/Komillia


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